Hack Lego Recreation Boy to Play Actual Cartridges

As a lot as we want it did, the Lego Game Boy doesn’t play precise cartridges. The inevitable subsequent step is to repair that error. Sure, that image reveals off a completely working Lego Recreation Boy constructed utilizing a customized PCB (printed circuit board) that performs precise Recreation Paks or any of your fashionable homebrew titles. What’s extra, the modder who created the working Lego Recreation Boy promised followers she is going to launch a equipment to show the $50 Lego set into the most effective—or maybe first—operational brick-based handheld. Tetris enjoying on a handheld product of blocks is probably going essentially the most ironic expertise you’ll be able to have with gaming {hardware}.

Australia-based modder Natalie the Nerd has been making waves within the retro handheld modding scene for lengthy sufficient that when she claimed in July she would make the Lego Recreation Boy play precise cartridges, folks paid consideration. The modder proved that, sometimes, desires do come true. She confirmed off a practical Lego Recreation Boy, full with precise controls and a cartridge slot. To place it within the easiest phrases, it’s rattling wonderful.

“I do know from expertise of routing Recreation Boy CPU PCBs that there isn’t a lot to it. There’s the RAM, CPU, some decoupling capacitors, and energy regulation,” Natalie the Nerd wrote a blog post. She opted for the MGB (Pocket) CPU, the identical because the one discovered within the 1996 model of the Recreation Boy line, versus the DMG launched in 1989. Area is tight when the exterior shell is made out of thick Lego bricks, so utilizing the newer chip made extra sense, she mentioned. “The DMG CPU has exterior VRAM, the MGB CPU has inner VRAM and in a really space-conscious construct, that was the largest issue.”

So no, this isn’t one of many many software program emulation units and even an Analogue Pocket operating a customized FPGA (field-programmable gate array) board. In virtually each means, it’s an actual Recreation Boy. The working Lego Recreation Boy buttons and USB-C port are hooked as much as 3D-printed components. So far as mods go, this one appears comparatively doable even for the newcomer with little DIY expertise. On Discord, Natalie the Nerd confirmed she plans to launch a mod equipment. “It simply must be refined a contact,” she mentioned.

Lego instructed Gizmodo it labored intently with Nintendo to design the toy handheld, and it reveals. The Lego Recreation Boy could be very related in scale in comparison with the actual handheld that first debuted in 1989. As a substitute of a display screen, it makes use of lenticular playing cards to supply a simulacrum of the well-known green-shaded dot matrix show. The system additionally comes with a false cartridge slot to shove in brick-based Recreation Paks. Lego and Nintendo designed it as a show piece. For those who intend to make use of it as a working handheld, it’s possible you’ll want to interrupt out the “Kragle,” aka superglue, to maintain it from falling aside in your palms.

Lego hardly ever makes working, mechanical units. I’m nonetheless hoping past hope that one designer’s working Lego film camera becomes a reality. For those who’re not affected person sufficient to attend for this mod equipment and also you want a working Lego gaming console proper now, you’ll be able to all the time jam an entire NES motherboard into the Lego model and relive the retro delights of the late Eighties.