Live data from Hacker News

Architecture of the Game Boy Advance

copetti.org

81–87 of 87 posts

Re: Architecture of the Game Boy Advance

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Switch is great but you have to get a third-party dock and AC adapter for optimal portability[1]. I'm kind of perplexed by the bad design of the official dock. [1] There were some issues with unofficial docks/adapters bricking consoles, but they seem to be sorted out in the current gen third-party accessories.

Get the Genki Covert Dock. [1] Its perfect for portable gaming. 1. https://www.genkithings.com/products/covert-dock

Wow! Thank you. I don't think I can justify the purchase, already having bought a fairly small third-party dock and power adapter, but hopefully someone else sees this. The Genki is the obvious choice, assuming it works correctly.

Re: Architecture of the Game Boy Advance

#82
post #33

I did a little bit of GBA homebrew development back in its heyday. It is a really fun little bit of hardware to hack on. It's powerful enough that you can write your whole game in C++, but not so powerful that you should rely on the system allocator for anything. It's in a lovely sweet spot for a particular dialect of zero-overhead C++ that's really fun to write. As a simple example, I had a little class library of d…

Did a bit when I was abt 12yo, embarrasing/naive code: https://github.com/benoror/gbadev/blob/master/%40rkanoid/jue...

The programmer you are today is the result of all the code you ever wrote, good and bad;

Re: Architecture of the Game Boy Advance

#83

Game Boy Advance, especially the SP, was the greatest handheld console to me. Had rechargeable batteries that you could charge by plugging in (back in those days, as a kid, it was a game changer), played all your existing library of game boy games, amazing folding mechanism and portable, small size and of course a great library as well. Perfection. And as I say that, the Switch has proven to be an amazing challenger…

The DS Lite edges it for me. You could get a microsd ds cartridge adapter as well as an expandable flash cartridge for the GBA slot and store all of your home brew games on the microsd. Back then, it felt so futuristic to have an entire library of games in one cartridge on the go.

The design was great too.

Re: Architecture of the Game Boy Advance

#84
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

luckily the GB/GBC was nice and slow so homebrew emulators could totally run your legally dumped gameboy carts onto your extremely legal flash carts

HackerNews, not CorporateBootlickerNews. Ripping video games and playing them on other consoles or emulating them is no different than ripping CDs and playing them on your phone. Does any of this seem illegal? More importantly, does any of this seem to violate the agreement of purchasing and ownership?

???

I’m super contused at this post. This was just a tongue-in-cheek way of talking about emulators and ROMs (most people aren’t ripping their own carts, they’re downloading them from somewhere and probably never bought the original game)

I’m not making a value judgement, and like I’ve played a lot of stuff on emulators

Re: Architecture of the Game Boy Advance

#85
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HackerNews, not CorporateBootlickerNews. Ripping video games and playing them on other consoles or emulating them is no different than ripping CDs and playing them on your phone. Does any of this seem illegal? More importantly, does any of this seem to violate the agreement of purchasing and ownership?

??? I’m super contused at this post. This was just a tongue-in-cheek way of talking about emulators and ROMs (most people aren’t ripping their own carts, they’re downloading them from somewhere and probably never bought the original game) I’m not making a value judgement, and like I’ve played a lot of stuff on emulators

>most people aren’t ripping their own carts, they’re downloading them from somewhere and probably never bought the original game

I’ve never seen a single ROM homebrew or console hacking community that supports piracy. If users are savvy enough to be able to work with ROMs then they likely know how to rip game carts. Piracy draws legal action from big companies that wish to remove rights. As the niche grows ever smaller, behaving well becomes ever more existentially important.

Re: Architecture of the Game Boy Advance

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of native resolution kills it for me, on a sprite-based console.

Most these days double the resolution in each direction, so you have 4x integer scaling. It’s a different look for sure, but it’s razor sharp and you don’t have shimmering or other scaling artifacts.

I know some of it might be years of training from PC-based indie games with pixel art, but I really like the look of it.

I have it when playing GBA games on my Powkiddy RGB10 (also 480x320 native resolution), and I think it looks great, especially when compared to the 95 PPI display on my other handheld, a New 3DS XL.

Re: Architecture of the Game Boy Advance

#87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Switch is great but you have to get a third-party dock and AC adapter for optimal portability[1]. I'm kind of perplexed by the bad design of the official dock. [1] There were some issues with unofficial docks/adapters bricking consoles, but they seem to be sorted out in the current gen third-party accessories.

I use the official dock and just leave it at home attached to my TV. Are there any advantages to using third-party docks over the official ones? The official one seems to work well--it charges my Switch when unused (I actually mostly use the dock as 'storage' when I am not using it) and provides me with the option to play on my TV (not that I do that often). I also have a nice bag which I occasionally use to take my…

I have a third party dock about the size of zippo that plugs into the USB-C port, and has another USB-C port for charging, HDMI for picture, and a 'regular USB port for pairing and whatnot. it's great to bring along to friends so we can play on their tv without having to package my entire dock!
Post reply on HN