An actual circuit bent Gameboy (?) and some Lego

June 28th, 2007

I’m actively checking my search engine referrers, so I know what people were looking for when they got here. I’ll do also do a more complete post about this, Syd Lexia style.
One of the more popular keywords for people finding their way here, are Gameboy circuit bending. (And related terms) This is what I believe to be the first actual circuit bent Gameboy I’ve come across. (Found by accident on youtube) I’m not totally sure if the guts are actually from a Gameboy though.

This might also be of interest: A bent Casio SK-8 with a breakout box made of a GB case. Done by the pro-bender Kaseo.

And also another little thing I found by accident: A Gameboy built in Lego. (Although it looks like a prop, it looks damn nice)
Lego Gameboy
Found at Brickshelf.

One Response to “An actual circuit bent Gameboy (?) and some Lego”

  1. Gameboy Genius » Blog Archive » An actual circuit bent Gameboy this time :o says:

    [...] The last time I thought someone had bent a Gameboy, I was wrong. It was a fake. This time, coming from SeanBroccoli, it’s for real, but the bend is simply a freeze button, which is not very interesting. This is not Sean’s fault of course - it’s the Gameboy’s. The GB is a microcomputer, and almost anything will make it crash rather than produce interesting circuit bent effects. If the CPU comes across any invalid CPU instructions, it will simply lock up. The NES can handle a little more action, but that’s because in most cases you’re targetting the graphics chip rather than the CPU when bending it. (I think) A better way to go is to use some GB music making software like LSDj, Nanoloop or perhaps PocketNoise which is an art project by Christoph Kummerer which has a glitchy almost circuit bent look to it. If Chistoph could just reply to my mails… :/ // So yeah, if I were to “bend” a Gameboy myself, I’d write custom software for it, or use existing Gameboy music software. A couple of side notes: The first drone sound is actually an example of the Gameboy’s flexible PRNG (Pseudo Random Noise Generator) Without going too much into technical details, it’s a digital noise generator that can do sort of melodic noise. As for clocking the Gameboy and other stuff, super-bender Gijs has a few tips: one two. There’s even a way to clock it freely to any frequency using a component called LTC1799. Check derWarst’s video for some info on that. [...]

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