As a kid, I never owned one of those grey beasts but while on holidays back in 1994, I stumbled across a 'Limited Edition' Yellow unit bundled with Donkey Kong Land and Tetris in the Dutyfree store.
I was pretty shattered when I discovered the poor screen quality - I could hardly play Donkey Kong Land and after only 10 or 20 games, it was packed away never to see the light of day again.
Fast forward to 2016 when I recently stumbled across it in a box of stuff, still in the original acrylic case with the games, instruction booklets and box art, I instantly thought how cool it'd be to retro-fit some modern hardware into it and play some of the more modern games - hence I stumbled onto the Sudomod site
I went back and forth for a while wondering whether cutting up such a mint example would be seen as sacrilege and ultimately decided that my first effort should be on a cheap, Ebay replacement shell - in boring old grey no less.
With some other retro-gaming projects being held up waiting for parts, I finally pulled out the Grey monolith and bought one of tinkeyBOYs 'all-in-one' controller boards along with his new DPI adapters along with a few other bits and pieces..
I started off by marking out and milling off all the unneeded screw bosses using my drill press and milling attachment.
The screen area was marked out 2.0mm from the edge ready for trimming. I actually used an ice-cream stick for this - it was the perfect thickness.
This is the first, rough cut and was cleaned up with jewelers files and sanding boards post this shot. I am hoping to use one of Retro Pie Handhelds grey "Dot matrix with stereo sound" screen protectors if/when they are back in stock
I designed up a little jig to help align the drill based on the dimensions TinerBOY supplied.
I also used one of his 3W speakers which are a fair bit larger than the stock Gameboy speaker. This required the floor of the battery compartment to be clearanced for the magnet.
It also required a little clearancing for the USB hub and audio IC's on the controller board - the square looking left-hand side of this opening stock Nintendo. Down the track, I'll clean this up to match the right side with a 10mm radius.
The milling bit does a nice job of machining down the un-used screw bosses.
Pretty happy with the fit of the speaker.
With the case nearing completion, I turned my attention to mounting the LCD and electronics. There are STL files around for the DPI LCD but nothing really did everything that I wanted (namely incorporate the Pi Zero/DPI PCB mounting) therefore I started from scratch and designed my own.
The frame allows the DPI/Pi Zero to clip in place without any additional hardware and locates the SD care in the GB's stock contrast slot.
I also designed up a little bracket that holds the DC-DC converter/charger PCB using the metal shield screw holes. It includes a mount for a 3mm RGB LED that sits in the charge port and wires up the charger PCB to indicate charge status.
Still a bit more to be done, but it's been a fun (quick) project so far.. stay tuned..!!
