News — Page 3
Two useful upgrades for Game Boy Advance SP.
For a shell replacement: an eXtremeRate shell for Game Boy Advance SP.
Officially the best battery for Game Boy Advance SP — FunnyPlaying, 1040 mAh!
ChisBread officially announces a new full-featured flash cartridge
On March 13, I wrote about the prototype of a new SuperChis revision with RTC and rumble. ChisBread has now officially unveiled a new full-featured GBA flash cartridge, and development is nearly complete.
The announced features include improved compatibility, Mode B, RTC, rumble, a gyroscope, and a solar sensor. There is also room on the PCB for additional features. The developers also want the battery to be replaceable without soldering.
The final name, price, and release date have not been announced yet.
G6 Flash with a black button
My G6 Flash finally arrived — an old flash cartridge with a black button.
I had never seen one for sale before. Thanks to Sergey, who ordered it straight from China the very day I spotted it and then sent it on to me.
That black button had been bugging me. The explanations online sounded strange: apparently it is needed to launch GST ROM images of Nintendo DS games.
What “needed” actually meant was far from obvious. Hold the button down and GST images somehow start working?
Honestly, without an old guide from the internet I would never have figured out how this button works.
The weirdness started immediately. The old firmware is damn near impossible to find. I also made the smartest possible move and formatted the cartridge without making a backup. Eventually I somehow found firmware 1.5, but then another problem appeared.
The cartridge worked on a GBA SP, but not on a Nintendo DS when used as a regular GBA cartridge. I tested two original “Fat” DS systems and it failed on both.
I searched for guides but found nothing useful. Then I tried the cartridge on a DS Lite — it worked. Then on an iQue DS — that worked too.
At that point I started to get suspicious.
I pulled the cartridge out of the slot ever so slightly, and suddenly it launched normally on both original DS units. I cannot say for sure which side is at fault — the iQue DS and DS Lite are newer revisions — but I am leaning toward the flash cartridge itself.
And then came the third problem: GST ROM images. Where do you even get them?
Oddly enough, ChatGPT came to the rescue and pointed out that my own website hosts GST Universal Patcher 3.1, which can create exactly that kind of ROM image.
We briefly wondered whether the resulting image would really match the old releases, then reached the only sensible conclusion: there was nothing to debate, we just had to try it.
And it worked on the first try. I patched Bomberman with the GST patcher, then wrote the ROM image to the flash cartridge using a U-Reader I already had from another cartridge.
I launch the game — white screen.
At this point I have absolutely no faith that this thing is really going to work the way some ancient internet post claims.
I hold down the black button on the cartridge, quickly power-cycle the Nintendo DS, wait for the Health Warning to disappear, release the button — and somehow, miraculously, the game launches.
It feels like magic.
There is almost no practical value to this today, but the fact that it works is fantastic. The level of hackery in the early DS scene was something else.
P.S. The game worked with both PassKey and NeoFlash's MagicKey. Surprisingly.
EZ-FLASH OMEGA DE B
EZ-FLASH has released a new flash cartridge!
Well, “new” is doing a lot of work here…
A product page for the EZ-FLASH OMEGA Definitive Edition B has appeared on the official website.
Anyone familiar with the lineup might be thinking that this revision is already more than three years old.
But this really is a “new” flash cartridge.
So the Definitive Edition lineup now consists of three cartridges:
- EZ-FLASH OMEGA Definitive Edition Rev.A
- EZ-FLASH OMEGA Definitive Edition Rev.B — the same as Rev.A, but with a different chip.
- EZ-FLASH OMEGA Definitive Edition B
Yes, the naming is wonderfully clear. Thanks, EZ-FLASH — we're barely confused at all.
What's changed?
The main change: games up to 512 Mbit can now be launched directly. The previous limit was 256 Mbit.
NOR capacity has also increased from 512 Mbit to 960 Mbit.
Best of all, NOR management finally makes sense. You no longer have to delete games strictly from the end of the list. You can remove a specific game and write another one into the freed space.
Now for the old Rev.B.
It appeared back in 2022, when EZ-FLASH started having trouble sourcing the Spartan 6 LX9 chips used in the original Definitive Edition. They switched to the Spartan 6 LX16 instead.
So the lineup looked like this:
- Rev.A — the original PCB with the LX9.
- Rev.B — the newer PCB with the LX16.
Functionally, however, they were the same cartridge.
The current OMEGA Definitive Edition B is a separate version. It has its own product page, its own kernel/firmware, and new features.
In my opinion, this cartridge exists out of necessity.
The original OMEGA and OMEGA DE used similar components. Then those chips became a problem — either production was reduced or supply became too unreliable.
EZ-FLASH first discontinued the regular OMEGA so the remaining chips could go to the DE. The EZ-FLASH Air replaced it as a simpler cartridge with more NOR storage.
And now, apparently, the chip shortage has caught up with the Definitive Edition as well.
P.S. That blue PCB is hideous…
P.P.S. Thanks to comrade Nightmare X for sending me the news.
New arrivals: Nintendo Zone and Analogue Pocket adapters
1. Nintendo Zone Wireless Distribution Box cartridge.
It was used to connect a Nintendo Zone Box to the network. Mine has a slightly dirty corner, but it was very cheap — just 1,000 rubles. I now have a small collection of four cartridges that were used in retail stores.
2. Analogue Pocket adapters.
I have finally collected all the Analogue Pocket adapters: Sega Game Gear, Neo Geo Pocket, Atari Lynx, and PC Engine / TurboGrafx-16.
What I like most about this console is the ability to play games from original cartridges through adapters, rather than relying purely on emulation like a typical Anbernic handheld.
3. Flash cartridges for the adapters.
I also picked up a flash cartridge for each adapter.
They all work perfectly except the PC Engine cartridge: instead of opening a menu, it simply boots one game. I have not figured out how to fix that yet.
SuperChis 2.0 has finally arrived for testing.
I had already posted about this cartridge before, but back then I had to rely on photos and other people's videos. Now I can finally test it properly.
The full review is now on the site: SuperChis 2.0 — review of a strange flash cartridge.
ChisBread has announced that SuperChis 2.0 is here, but there is a catch.
Do not buy one under any circumstances until you have read my post about this cartridge.
P.S. Of course, I have already ordered one.
P.P.S. For anyone else like me :) -> link
More Game Boy flash cartridges
Four more Game Boy flash cartridges arrived almost at the same time.
Photo 1 — the black cartridges.
The seller called them Leon DIY. Both are MBC3 cartridges: one has a battery, the other does not.
The version with the battery also has some kind of button. Any idea what it does?
Photo 2 — GB Flash and ChisFlash.
I also got a GB Flash (MBC3) and a ChisFlash (MBC5).
Special thanks to Ruslan for the ChisFlash — it was a gift from him.
The ChisFlash deserves a special mention. Using a guide from Reddit, I managed to make a four-game multicart:
ChisFlash v1.2.1 MBC5 Plus from Epicjoy
P.S. I still hope to make a video about choosing a flash cartridge for the Game Boy. I certainly have enough material now: I have collected most of the major options.
The EZ-Flash Junior's battery
The lengths people will go to because of the battery in the Junior 👀👀👀
Which EverDrive should you choose for the Game Boy?
There's a new article on the site:
Which EverDrive should you choose for the Game Boy?
I finally went through the entire EverDrive GB lineup: the old EverDrive GB v1, clones, X3, X5, and X7.
And honestly, I had never really thought about how oddly saves are handled on the EverDrive GB. I assumed the standard process was roughly: save in the game → restart the console → the save gets written to the memory card.
But that is not how the EverDrive works at all.
The EverDrive GB X3 is especially wonderful. After saving in a game, you have to remember to return to the menu using a separate button on the cartridge. Forget to do that, and the save is guaranteed to be lost.
Krikzz does mention this, but without much emphasis. At first glance, it is easy to miss just how inconvenient it is in real use.
The X5 and X7 handle things better, but the save logic is still not exactly intuitive. Why insist on keeping the save in SRAM instead of writing it to the card immediately? I honestly do not understand.
What do you think? Is a genuine EverDrive still worth the money, or is a good clone now the easier choice for simply playing Game Boy games?
New arrivals: EverDrive GB X3 and EverDrive GB X5.
Most importantly, huge thanks to Ruslan! He helped me buy all of this in China — and, honestly, not just this :)
Why would I need two more EverDrives when I already have the GB X7? Because I could not find a proper comparison of the EverDrive GB v1, X3, X5, and X7, so I decided to buy the X3 and X5 and test everything myself.
For science, so to speak :)
The prices were:
EverDrive GB X3 — 400 yuan
EverDrive GB X5 — 550 yuan
Total: 950 yuan, roughly 12,350 rubles
Plus shipping — around 1,000 rubles
Grand total: roughly 13,350 rubles.
I also got the Game Gear cartridge adapter for Analogue Pocket. I have already checked it: a Game Gear flash cartridge works through the adapter. So now I can properly test that setup too.
