Picture credit score: Natalie the Nerd
Natalie the Nerd has spent years reverse engineering outdated Sport Boy motherboards and mapping them out onto detailed schematics. When Nintendo and LEGO launched their $59 show set—a brick constructed Sport Boy—she noticed greater than only a shelf decoration.
The LEGO Sport Boy arrived in shops as a trustworthy duplicate in scale, right down to the inexperienced tinted show created from lenticular playing cards that mimic the unique’s pixelated glow. The buttons press with a satisfying click on however go nowhere. A dummy cartridge bay sits empty begging for objective.
She began with measurements from press images, scaling photos on her laptop to suit the brick enclosure. Area is the whole lot right here; these chunky LEGO partitions depart no room for error. Drawing from her deep data of the {hardware} (gleaned from routing numerous customized boards) Natalie saved it easy. On the heart is the MGB CPU, the chip that powered the Sport Boy Pocket from 1996. Why not the unique DMG from the ‘89 launch? The MGB has video RAM contained in the processor, no want for the additional exterior chip the older mannequin requires. That saves valuable millimeters, matches neatly right into a case the place each hole counts. She paired it with fundamental RAM for reminiscence, decoupling capacitors to clean out electrical hiccups and a easy energy setup from her Safer Charger designs.
Energy enters by a USB-C port which is linked to 3D printed adapters styled like LEGO studs for a safe match. The buttons, the stiff plastic nubs on the LEGO body, join on to a matrix that sends alerts to the CPU—identical to the actual factor. Audio pins are ready for audio system however she hasn’t but defined how they are going to be linked. The again panel which was beforehand only a holder for a faux cartridge now has an actual slot.
No black belt soldering expertise required; simply regular arms, just a few instruments and endurance. Begin with the LEGO equipment, earlier than printing the customized buttons and port adapters, or shopping for them if Natalie releases the recordsdata. Etch or order the PCB and populate it with off the shelf parts: the CPU is about the identical worth as a classic cartridge. Solder the connections, put the board within the body that used to carry the faux display, and put the cartridge bay in place. Energy it up, put in a recreation and watch blocks fall in Tetris, the irony is peak as digital bricks fall right into a bodily one.
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