2013: One Gameboy project per week

I've taken on a challenge to do one Gameboy project (big or small) every week. The idea is to just do something, and explore new ideas. It's probably doomed to fail either because of lack of ideas to fill up 52 weeks, or because I'll lose motivation. But I'll keep going for as long as I can.

Last week I explored making the DMG LCD display more than four shades of green by switching quickly between shades, and abusing the slow nature of the DMG LCD.

Link: http://blog.gg8.se/wordpress/2013/01/06 ... -of-green/

This week I released a mystery ROM which (arguably) does something, but what? Feel free to try the ROM, and guess, or otherwise figure out what it does, and how.

Link: http://blog.gg8.se/wordpress/2013/01/13 ... stery-rom/

More to come in the future...

That sounds very interesting!
I've been trying to get into Gameboy stuff for a while and this will probably help me pick that up again :3
Will follow your projects for sure!

€dit:
I was wondering...will you upload any parts of the code you wrote for your projects or will you just provide the roms?

Looks cool ! I admit that what kept me away from GameBoy, aside from the obscure Z80-variant CPU is the lack of any flash carts available on the market.

It does sound like a very ambitious challenge (it's hard to keep motivation for such a long period), it almost feels like you're setting yourself up to fail. What I mean is, if you know beforehand that there's a low chance of completing the challenge, you're setting yourself up for a disappointment (or just don't care enough, at which point there's really no point in calling it a challenge in the first place).

But good luck regardless, I hope some cool stuff comes out of it!

I guess this is as good as it gets when it comes to Game Boy. Not perfect, but I really wanted a GB/GBC Flash Cart so I bought it anyway. I *just* bought it, so I can't provide any sort of review yet.

As for having a new project each week, that's pretty hardcore! I hope you can keep up with it! =)

Maybe. Part of the problem is code vanity, (the idea that other people may find my code ugly) and also the implication that people will start asking me questions in private when they can't understand some aspect of the code or can't compile it or so. I will definitely consider sharing code when it has educational value, though.

Not really true. There's EMS 64M that someone mentioned above. There's also bleepbloop/smartboy USB cartridges, which are not made any more, but sometimes available on the second hand market. There's also drag'n'derp which is a brand new cartridge which is super hard to get because it's only made in low quantities. (Batches of a few tens of cartridges are let out at a time, and are sold out within minutes.)
http://derpcart.com/
And finally, there's a flash cartridge project which I can't say too much about at the moment, but which will probably turn out to be beneficial for the Gameboy community. I'm not involved in that project, but I have a project of a similar nature in store for this year.

It's an ambitious challenge for sure, but it's a form of self therapy, to force myself to work on a project each week. The projects don't have to be big, though, just something each week. In case of failure, the plan is to step down to one project every second, third or fourth week instead, rather than giving up. I have quite a few ides, and as it turns out, other people too. No matter what, something good will come out of it.

Dear god, 52 weeks fills the year - do you think this is how Action 52 was developed?



Now THAT is ambition.

I think the developed of those 52 games should have been alcohlic and worked in average 15 seconds on each game. Seriously.

A cool challenge. That "flicker a stairstep pattern over 3 different frames" test is exactly what I did when trying to get more shades out of the Epoch Game Pokekon's screen. (here: http://www.chrismcovell.com/GamePokekon/pokedemo.html )

And here's the mystery revealed.

http://blog.gg8.se/wordpress/2013/01/16 ... planation/

This week, a simple MIDI synth.

http://blog.gg8.se/wordpress/2013/01/20 ... -midi-rom/

I guess I forgot to announce week 4's project here, so here it is: http://blog.gg8.se/wordpress/2013/01/28 ... lcome-rom/
It's a test/welcome ROM that will eventually be shipped with BGB as a demo. It also comes with source code.

http://blog.gg8.se/wordpress/2013/02/04 ... -released/
Week 5, the latest project, is the release of my alternative LSDj (Little Sound Dj) file manager, which can write song data to flash on supported cartridges and also transfer it over a link cable between Gameboys.

This week's project: An audio loop masher.

http://blog.gg8.se/wordpress/2013/02/11 ... -an-a-men/

You have a failed link to the gbdev pandocs in the most recent post.

Oops! Fixed now. Also fixed, is the download link, which pointed to the wrong ROM.

Week 9's project might interest you guys. I'm taking a look at the EMS cartridges and their multi ROM protocols.

http://blog.gg8.se/wordpress/2013/03/04 ... fects-you/

I didn't know anything about configuration mode but I'm not surprised it's absent from the 64M carts. That's why all the fixes are needed. Really is a shame that they would *remove* functionality. Why you would go from having some protection for your Master Bank Register to having none makes no sense. Ofcourse the vast majority of games don't bother it but some certainly do. Donkey Kong Land II if I recall does bother it but the rom is so jam packed I didn't see any safe area to add code to fix it.

It'll be nice when eventually someone, perhaps Krikzz, develops a new Gameboy Flash cartridge. Too bad they couldn't have left that critical functionality in the 64M version.

I can think of two reasons.
1) The guy who was good CPLD programming quit and they could no longer get the old logic to work.
2) They wanted to use a cheaper CPLD to save money. However, looking at the datasheet, both the old and new CPLD have 64 macrocells, so superficially it shouldn't matter unless the new chip was incompatible with the old layout.
Or, there IS master protection in hardware which no one knows how to access, and is not used by any known menu ROM. Maybe I should ask EMS about this, but previously when I've asked about technical details about their products, they have just said it was a secret they couldn't share.

Perhaps if it is present but unknown the powerup state decides it is in "Config mode". If you could find it, that would solve some problems. It's a shame though since it should have both the Bank 00 to 01 behavior option and the Register protection.