The CRT Game Boy: A Creation of Hope and Hot Glue

As I began working on my latest project, I couldn't help but feel a sense of hope. I was determined to create a handheld game console that would surpass its dot matrix counterpart, the original Game Boy. I started by taking apart an old CRT television set, hoping to use some of its components to build my new device. The goal was to salvage as much of the casing as possible, like I had done before, and hopefully, there would be plenty of "hopefullys" in my videos. I liked being hopeful, a little bit more than usual, and this project seemed like the perfect opportunity to try.

The next step involved some trimming, which required me to cut out certain sections to make way for the new components. This was not an easy task, as I had to carefully remove parts without damaging them. As I worked, I began to wonder where the headphones would go, a question that hadn't even crossed my mind until this point. Were they going to fit in here somewhere? I didn't know, and this uncertainty only added to my excitement.

As I continued working, I started to think about how the various components would come together. I imagined them sitting in their designated spaces, each one fitting neatly into its counterpart. It was a puzzle, and I was determined to solve it. Before I began the final assembly, I wanted to test the device to ensure that everything was working as expected. This was the first time we'd run the system on battery power, so I was nervous about how it would perform.

I started by plugging in the batteries, a mix of Energizer Max Plus and standard ones, hoping to see if they would provide enough power for my creation. To my surprise, the device sprang to life, its screen glowing brightly as it booted up. However, this excitement was short-lived, as I soon realized that the battery life was not very long. The device boot looped after just a few minutes of use, and the batteries began to warm up. Despite this setback, I was thrilled with how everything had come together.

The final assembly process was a delicate one, requiring precision and care. As I glued in the motherboard and other components, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride. This was what it meant to be an engineer, to bring an idea to life from scratch. However, my enthusiasm was soon tempered by the realization that hot gluing myself had become a recurring problem. Ow ow ow! As I worked, I tried to minimize this risk, but it seemed like fate had other plans.

As the device began to take shape, I couldn't help but notice that the headphone jack was still exposed. To fix this, I added some additional connectors and glue, hoping to conceal the problem. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the assembly was complete. It looked...different. The CRT screen seemed to glow with an otherworldly light, and the device's size and shape were unlike anything I had seen before.

I couldn't resist testing the device immediately, so I plugged in a controller and started playing a game. To my surprise, everything worked as expected, including the constant buzzing noise through the speaker. This was not a minor detail; it added to the overall experience of playing a Game Boy. As I continued to play, I realized that this device had many features that the original Game Boy lacked.

One feature in particular caught my attention: the ability to play games in the dark. The screen seemed to adjust its brightness automatically, making it easier to see what was happening on the screen. This was a game-changer for anyone who played in low-light environments. I also noticed that the device had a certain amount of battery power, enough to last for at least a couple of minutes.

Despite all these positives, there was one major issue: the battery life was not very long. In fact, it was barely enough to make it through two levels before boot looping and shutting down. This was a significant drawback, especially considering that I had used high-quality batteries that were expensive. However, this was also what made the device so unique – it was clear that I had pushed the limits of what was possible with a handheld game console.

As I looked at my creation, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. The CRT Game Boy was not perfect, but it was certainly something special. It had its quirks and flaws, but it also had features that set it apart from the original Game Boy. And even though it may not have been an easy project to complete, I knew that it would be worth it in the end.

The CRT Game Boy is more than just a creation; it's a testament to the power of innovation and perseverance. Even if it doesn't make sense to use CRTs in modern game consoles, I'm glad I took the risk and made something truly unique. And who knows? Maybe there are others out there who will appreciate this device as much as I do.

In conclusion, my journey with the CRT Game Boy was one of hope and hot glue. It may not have been an easy project to complete, but it was certainly worth it in the end. If you're feeling adventurous and want to try something new, I encourage you to give this project a shot. You never know what you might create.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhigh voltage may cause mortal damage so the Game Boy screen is not great it's got no backlight and it's got a lot of motion blur and that's why people are upgrading to Modern LCDs nowadays but what if we could do something a little more period this kind of looks like a Game Boy right I found this thing on AliExpress this is a CRT display out of a video intercom it's actually brand new it's never been used although it was not made recently before plasmas and modern LCDs and stuff took off in the mids CRT was King a CRT is essentially a vacuum tube that shoots electrons at a layer of phosphors to make them glow the right amounts that you want this particular layout is pretty weird normally the electrons fire at the back of the phosphors and you see the picture on the front of the phosphors whereas this one you're looking at the back of the phosphorus through this glass and the electrons get steered down at it but anyway should we try and fit this in into this it could work screws out and what do we got all right it's been a long time since I've been inside a Game Boy let's separate those two bits motherboard out so here's what's in a Game Boy this is the motherboard this is where everything happens this barely has any Electronics on it at all this board is basically a controller with the display and speaker attached and then they just wire straight to this board and even the motherboard itself is fairly simple we've got the CPU here which has a lot in common with the z80 got 8 KOB of work Ram 8 KOB of video RAM and an audio amplifier and that's it for the chips on here everything else is just accompanying componentry I do have one big problem though and that's that this LCD has absolutely nothing in common with an old TV and this takes the same video format as an old TV sadly the easiest way I found to overcome this was to buy a modern LCD conversion for the Game Boy which included TV output so I guess we're going to learn to install that as well as connect to a CRT I do like that it came with an aftermarket shell though because this one looks trashed hpo something something that's all the electronics for it and look at this this is an actual replacement front PCB this replaces this entire thing this is just a generic LCD which they've turned on vertical installation of this kit looks fairly straightforward ribbon in there ah we do have to remove the speaker from the other front PCB that solders onto here other end of this ribbon goes into this one these brown ribbon cables are very fragile so I'm actually going to remove this from here while I plug this in cuz I don't want to tear that off that would be a very bad thing these ribbon connectors have a tiny little flap that clamps the ribbon in now let's flip this over and plug this back onto here I'm going to use my benchtop power supply just clipped onto the battery terminals because putting batteries in right now is not possible let's see what happens well we got something doesn't look very good I wonder why I can see why cuz I'm very silly that's why and hopefully I didn't kill anything just now I didn't pay enough attention to what was going on and uh I've actually plugged this in upside down oh dear this is not a good start power on oh that is a good start that's awesome but we're not going to use that screen I want to use this guy however to do that oh dear there's options here somewhere how do I do the options there we go OSD so this is why I bought this kit TV on oh dear it's gone there is something I'm worried about and that is that every time I turn it on I might have to choose TV mode again and uh let's just find out if that's true yeah that is most unfortunate I'm going to have to include this LCD somewhere just so that we can choose TV mode unless I can figure out a better way of doing it now let's see if we can get this guy working at all it's supposed to run off 12 VTS but we've only got 6 volts in the Game Boy this is a buck converter which should be able to supply us 12 VTS from 6 VTS this connection here is connected straight to the battery terminal when the power's on so we're going to use that for our 6vt feed and straight off the negative battery terminal for ground or negative now what should happen is with this all turned on where's the power switch oh we're on already I should get 12 VTS across here and there we go 12 Vols so this should power this CRT if it has enough current capability we'll find that out when we try it this CRT came with no information whatsoever and it's got all these wires after a heap of research I did manage to find this diagram which is a bit blurry but it'll suffice and it turns out this whole bunch of wires here is just for the brightness and contrast controls you need to supply your own potentiometers for that I managed to find these two in my junk they're the right values this one has had engine oil leaked into it but it seems to measure up okay so we'll give that a chance they are huge but it's all I've got this other connector down here is for power and video and the middle two are just ground it's cuz video needs ground as well as power needs ground but they're connected together on the board well that smells like burning engine oil and two done now normally this LCD conversion kit wires to the link port on the Game Boy so that you can use that as an AV Port I don't like that idea too much cuz it means you can't link when it's connected to a TV but I guess you don't have to cut the case so I don't know kind of good kind of bad right down here there's two tiny little circles which are the AV output pins well it's not really AV it's just the video output we've got ground and video so these are going to connect to my CRT instead of the link Port then the power wires go onto the buck converter now we got to see if it works everything's connected back up again and hopefully when I turn this on something happens I mean to begin with it'll just come up on here but this might light up white that's kind of what I want it lit up so it's powering it let's let's see what happens if we change to CRT mode oh it's it's doing a thing okay hold on there's there's adjustments for that this thing set up for pal video and I need to change it to ntsc which one is it which one is it we've got H size focus vold is over here this guy this guy should fix it oh this screwdriver is too small this screwdriver is too big Ian come on hey we got a we got a stable picture look at that we got a stable picture these these things should uh do not very much what about this one so we don't have a contrast control that doesn't work because my potentiometer is full of engine oil but I see the picture I'm happy I'm good that's good with a bit of adjustment it's it's looking okay there's a lot of interference here these Buck converters are actually pretty garbage so that's that's generating a lot of noise electrical noise you can hear the noise through the speaker too might be the buck converter might be the CRT I don't know we'll just leave it like that though sounds like a vectrix those are cool I decided I'm determined to get this thing to boot straight to the CRT I don't want to use this LCD at all it's going to be super annoying so I've been researching the stuff on this board this chip here is a TV encoda chip it takes digital video and outputs analog video which is what this uses I searched and searched and searched all I could find was a product description I really needed to know what all the connections were for this and I could not find them online so I just had to go around and measure every single one with my oscilloscope and see if anything changes when I switch between the LCD and the CRT eventually I came across this very end pin here which is very hard to see on the camera but it's there I promise it's currently at 0 volts which is where that line is at the moment but then if I change over to TV mode all of a sudden it jumps up to 5 Vols so there's a chance that this pin alone might be able to make this thing boot straight to the CIT so I'm going to very carefully desolder this pin lift it up and see what happens well here it goes no does TV Mode still work no so all I've achieved there is making the CRT not work at all ever okay new plan I've decided to make something that will electronically press this button down for 3 seconds click down twice press enter again click up once and then press enter again every single time this thing turns on and the best way I can think of to do that is using a microcontroller or an uino or something like that except I have no programming knowledge whatsoever but luckily I know people so I sent a list of all of the microcontrollers that I've got to a friend of mine and we decided on this guy this is actually a Wi-Fi development board but we're not going to use the Wi-Fi it's just going to sit there and do nothing he wrote me a program based on what I wanted so all I had to do was send it to the board and now we're going to wire it up and hopefully it works now this has a bunch of pins on the bottom I don't need those so I'm going to get rid of them so I've got all the signals and the ground wire connected up I need to find somewh to connect the power wire too ideally this thing would like 5 or 6 volts that would be good just going to have a look at what power is this power light if I measure straight across this led I get 1.75 Vols that's fine for the LED but it's no good for this board but if I go a couple of steps back we find out that these components here are what are stepping down that voltage so I can go to here and I get 5.66 that's fine that's straight off the battery I reckon now just maybe this will work there's a 50/50 chance that it's going to be clicking that wheel the wrong direction and this is not going to work but hopefully hopefully even if the menu comes up that'll be great or just the LCD doesn't work at all that's right and if we go all the way back in time and put this screen back on then what happens I am worried this board here takes the battery voltage whatever that is it can be anything from about 2 volts up to 6 Vols and converts it to 5 volts for the logic board and - 19 Vols for the old LCD thankfully the schematic for the Game Boy is available online so I managed to figure out that this power board is not outputting the 5 volts that it's supposed to I don't know why that's decided to die on me or even if it's a problem with the motherboard still and it's just pulling this down I'm just going to wire a jumper across at the moment we won't have any voltage regulation but I'm using my benchtop power supply so I can just set the 5 volts manually for now Theus 19 Vols isn't required cuz we're using a new LCD not the old one okay the game going to boot ooh something smells hot it's not not good I don't want hot smells ow okay think we're in for bad times the part that's getting warm is the CPU it's an important thing that should not be getting warm my power supply still says no now that CPU is dead and that's really really disappointing yeah yeah the CPU is is is dead dead CPU well even with no CPU I can test whether the LCD thing is happening and all of that yeah so I got no image obviously cuz it's the CPU is not running so the whole thing is not running this powerboard works now so it it wasn't the powerboard that was at fault the CPU has fried seems like the arino didn't work either so that's great well after a whole bunch of back and forth with my programmer friend and me figuring out exactly what one notch on this wheel does watch this still garboard cuz we got no CPU yeah look at that it switches to the CRT without me touching anything all right now on to the biggest problem we've got this guy here I do have a whole bunch of game boys for spare Parts but uh not a single one of them has a motherboard none of the complete Game Boys I have are ones that I want to take a CPU from and that's where this guy comes in now before you get all upset cuz this is a really nice one I'm not getting rid of this one for good I'm just going to borrow the CPU I've got a really nasty conditioned one on its way from my friend osty at King kiju Collectibles once that arrives I'll take the CPU from that and put it back in to make this one a nice working one again but what even is this this isn't a Game Boy this is a super Game Boy this connects to a Super Nintendo so you can plug your Game Boy games in the top and then you get to play your game Game Boy games on your TV or in this case on a terrible reversing camera LCD inside the super Game Boy is this sgb CPU it's nearly the same as the DMG CPU that's inside a Game Boy it does do some stuff that the original Game Boy won't use but it can solder straight onto the motherboard and it'll work flawlessly except you miss out on the Nintendo boot screen which does speed up boot which is good but I like that pling at the beginning I just don't have a choice now even for desoldering you want lots of flux and then a bit of hot air and we'll see if we can lift this straight off wa that came off very quickly there we cook it down onto the Game Boy motherboard once it's cooled I get my microscope out and realize that half of the pins aren't actually connected and it's time to sold of those all down by hand this could be the first time that it works properly booting the game and switching to the CRT the game will start running before it gets to the CT but hopefully that's okay please please it works yes that's so good oh man I was so worried when that CPU stopped working but I've just saved it all right we got to do some assembly oh actually there's one more thing I need to know if this board actually boots without having this LCD connected ready yeah yes it does excellent okay that's so good well I want it to look something like this so first we're going to have to do some careful modification of the case now we're not covering the screen except for a kind of a little bit of an issue is that this board goes in here somewhere and that's going to cover the screen too however there's there's stuff on there that I need so I guess I'll just be careful there's a few things I'm going to have to reconnect now but that's okay a few to uncover so I can solder to them got some pretty rainbow wire this time there we go now I can put the controller Parts together d-pad Aton B and start and select speaker in I think that was probably glued in originally how about if I just misalign the keyway that should make it nice and sturdy in there I think yeah yeah there we go so now we've got our little Game Boy Controller Now is it going to fit on here there's quite a large gap there it's modification time yeah there we go and this will go on top you're going to take the board off the back of the CRT just so that I can sneak these wires through after that I'll put it back on again I don't want these wires to touch this heat sink so I'm just going to jam them through this a button and that'll keep them safe oh we can attach this now little bit of hot glue cover up this bit here because that's not really safe to leave exposed now that I've attached that together I probably need to thread this through somewhere would have been much easier beforehand oh oh check that out I got it through excellent It's not really where I wanted it but that'll be okay that's just sitting for now I'm not going to glue it down yet cuz I need to know the wiring now the back this is going to be a challenge I mean I'm going to use one of these for a start I'll put the motherboard where it's supposed to be I reckon I'll even be able to use the original power switch there I want to run this off a a batteries it'll probably run for like 3 seconds but I want to do it power board's going to have to relocate back to where it started out o I just saw a spark then nothing's connected to power though must have a capacitor somewhere hopefully that's not what killed the CPU last time just horribly tacking this back onto the other side because I can't be bothered clearing out the holes and doing it properly now we can come back here stop running away now I can stuff this board back down in where it belongs the video board seems like it wants to go here so it's glued there now and this board wants to be here oh I hope I don't short anything out let's just be care careful when we push this down I think oh no oh no I did a mistake I've glued this board down and I haven't attached these wires to it yet I hope that they're all available on the top I had the forart to take photos of both sides of this board before I cut it up and I'm so happy that I did cuz it means that I can find most of these places from the photos and not have to get to the other side of the board the last one is the speaker and um I hope I can still take this board out so using the schematic pin three on this audio amplifier is where this blue wire needs to go there's a little through hole here which I can connect to which gives me better access than trying to solder to one of those tiny pins and that's it that should be the wiring done I just need to figure out where these things are going to sit making some more space more space more space a that hit my hair which hurt heaps of course being here and not having nerves and all ooh I think I found space hot glue for you and I'm a little bit worried about using hot glue for this guy because it gets kind of warm and it might de glue itself so I'm just going to use double-sided tape instead it's probably going to still lose it stick with heat but at least I tried kind of maybe you can have some hot glue too so I've got a slight Gap to fix on this side too I wonder if I can just carve out the other half of the casing like I did before so hopefully there's lots of hopefully is in my videos I like being hopeful a little bit more trimming is required Maybe cut out for the headphones still don't know where these are going to go I didn't even think of that until right now are they going to fit in here somewhere I don't even know here we go this is looking like a thing that'll that'll sit there this will sit over here maybe they can hide up here yeah that's a good spot back up there before I do the final assembly I want to see if it still works I think that's important this is the first time we've run this on battery so I'm not certain that it'll work I'm just really hoping on oh that's not great I'll be honest I'll see if the batteries just aren't strong enough hey see if Energizer Max Plus is better oh oh yay it's running off batteries well let's uh turn that off before I use up my whole one half of 20 minutes it's assembly time some reason the AC adapter plug doesn't really line up might be because I don't have any screws in the motherboard just a suspicion that I have got get a connector here which may fit yep I'm going just leave that in there while I glue it all together and then it should be fine right gluing in the motherboard gluing in the everything ouch ouch ouch hot gluing myself seems to happen every time don't want to hot glue the volume ow ow ow ow ow okay I've I've hot glued myself a lot this is enough for this video all right that's the last hot gluing myself no more hot gluing myself this video a I've blocked up the headphone oh I've hot glued myself again ooh I do I do need to check that the controls work Looking Good Start works I can duck that's good I can't really test up but if all the others work then it means that it's probably fine yeah every button works it's kind of fun playing a game boy with an external controller I should really shorten these wires but I'm hoping I can just Jam them down in here instead because that'll be easier and a bit of hot glue I actually did manage to fix the pot with the engine oil in it all I had to do is crimp one of the terminals a bit better so we're keeping that in there now I've still got this mortally dangerous box sticking out the corner here I really need to cover it with something I reckon this will probably do it I need to go even closer I reckon yeah excellent no more more danger well probably got a few stringy bits to pull off before I'm happy with it look at this masterpiece how good is that it is a little bit of a handful I'll give you that but how good is it wait a minute wait a minute we got to have this on there except it's not dot matrix anymore it says c r t yeah we'll put the bottom one on too shall we there that's how you know it's Game Boy got the Game Boy bezel actually kind of looks better that's amazing the screen's gone a little bit skuff but um it's still actually better than the dot matrix display and most of that interference we saw before doesn't even seem to be there anymore I wonder how long the battery lasts for I'm hoping I can at least finish a couple of levels that would be excellent this is actually going okay I kind of expected this to only last a minute or so and then switch off but it's actually I mean I'm on level two oh there it goes now it's boot looping so the battery life isn't very long well I'm glad I left that AC adapter input because four batteries is not not enough for this thing to run they're actually kind of warm too and they are good ones they're expensive ones so there it is the CRT Game Boy the screen is legitimately good it actually looks better than the original dot matrix screen and you can play in the dark and it looks even better in the dark actually look at that it's got at least a couple of minutes of battery power and if you've got really big Pockets you might even be able to put it in one of them it even has a constant buzzing noise through the speaker regardless of whether the volume's up or down it has so many features all right so there's tons of reasons why nobody made any handheld game consoles with CRTs in them back in the day but I just did and I love it even if it is quite a bit crap so I've been collecting video games forever and I'm still buying stuff all the time if you want to see everything that I get I post a photo on float plane it's only a dollar a month and I'll see you there links in the descriptionhigh voltage may cause mortal damage so the Game Boy screen is not great it's got no backlight and it's got a lot of motion blur and that's why people are upgrading to Modern LCDs nowadays but what if we could do something a little more period this kind of looks like a Game Boy right I found this thing on AliExpress this is a CRT display out of a video intercom it's actually brand new it's never been used although it was not made recently before plasmas and modern LCDs and stuff took off in the mids CRT was King a CRT is essentially a vacuum tube that shoots electrons at a layer of phosphors to make them glow the right amounts that you want this particular layout is pretty weird normally the electrons fire at the back of the phosphors and you see the picture on the front of the phosphors whereas this one you're looking at the back of the phosphorus through this glass and the electrons get steered down at it but anyway should we try and fit this in into this it could work screws out and what do we got all right it's been a long time since I've been inside a Game Boy let's separate those two bits motherboard out so here's what's in a Game Boy this is the motherboard this is where everything happens this barely has any Electronics on it at all this board is basically a controller with the display and speaker attached and then they just wire straight to this board and even the motherboard itself is fairly simple we've got the CPU here which has a lot in common with the z80 got 8 KOB of work Ram 8 KOB of video RAM and an audio amplifier and that's it for the chips on here everything else is just accompanying componentry I do have one big problem though and that's that this LCD has absolutely nothing in common with an old TV and this takes the same video format as an old TV sadly the easiest way I found to overcome this was to buy a modern LCD conversion for the Game Boy which included TV output so I guess we're going to learn to install that as well as connect to a CRT I do like that it came with an aftermarket shell though because this one looks trashed hpo something something that's all the electronics for it and look at this this is an actual replacement front PCB this replaces this entire thing this is just a generic LCD which they've turned on vertical installation of this kit looks fairly straightforward ribbon in there ah we do have to remove the speaker from the other front PCB that solders onto here other end of this ribbon goes into this one these brown ribbon cables are very fragile so I'm actually going to remove this from here while I plug this in cuz I don't want to tear that off that would be a very bad thing these ribbon connectors have a tiny little flap that clamps the ribbon in now let's flip this over and plug this back onto here I'm going to use my benchtop power supply just clipped onto the battery terminals because putting batteries in right now is not possible let's see what happens well we got something doesn't look very good I wonder why I can see why cuz I'm very silly that's why and hopefully I didn't kill anything just now I didn't pay enough attention to what was going on and uh I've actually plugged this in upside down oh dear this is not a good start power on oh that is a good start that's awesome but we're not going to use that screen I want to use this guy however to do that oh dear there's options here somewhere how do I do the options there we go OSD so this is why I bought this kit TV on oh dear it's gone there is something I'm worried about and that is that every time I turn it on I might have to choose TV mode again and uh let's just find out if that's true yeah that is most unfortunate I'm going to have to include this LCD somewhere just so that we can choose TV mode unless I can figure out a better way of doing it now let's see if we can get this guy working at all it's supposed to run off 12 VTS but we've only got 6 volts in the Game Boy this is a buck converter which should be able to supply us 12 VTS from 6 VTS this connection here is connected straight to the battery terminal when the power's on so we're going to use that for our 6vt feed and straight off the negative battery terminal for ground or negative now what should happen is with this all turned on where's the power switch oh we're on already I should get 12 VTS across here and there we go 12 Vols so this should power this CRT if it has enough current capability we'll find that out when we try it this CRT came with no information whatsoever and it's got all these wires after a heap of research I did manage to find this diagram which is a bit blurry but it'll suffice and it turns out this whole bunch of wires here is just for the brightness and contrast controls you need to supply your own potentiometers for that I managed to find these two in my junk they're the right values this one has had engine oil leaked into it but it seems to measure up okay so we'll give that a chance they are huge but it's all I've got this other connector down here is for power and video and the middle two are just ground it's cuz video needs ground as well as power needs ground but they're connected together on the board well that smells like burning engine oil and two done now normally this LCD conversion kit wires to the link port on the Game Boy so that you can use that as an AV Port I don't like that idea too much cuz it means you can't link when it's connected to a TV but I guess you don't have to cut the case so I don't know kind of good kind of bad right down here there's two tiny little circles which are the AV output pins well it's not really AV it's just the video output we've got ground and video so these are going to connect to my CRT instead of the link Port then the power wires go onto the buck converter now we got to see if it works everything's connected back up again and hopefully when I turn this on something happens I mean to begin with it'll just come up on here but this might light up white that's kind of what I want it lit up so it's powering it let's let's see what happens if we change to CRT mode oh it's it's doing a thing okay hold on there's there's adjustments for that this thing set up for pal video and I need to change it to ntsc which one is it which one is it we've got H size focus vold is over here this guy this guy should fix it oh this screwdriver is too small this screwdriver is too big Ian come on hey we got a we got a stable picture look at that we got a stable picture these these things should uh do not very much what about this one so we don't have a contrast control that doesn't work because my potentiometer is full of engine oil but I see the picture I'm happy I'm good that's good with a bit of adjustment it's it's looking okay there's a lot of interference here these Buck converters are actually pretty garbage so that's that's generating a lot of noise electrical noise you can hear the noise through the speaker too might be the buck converter might be the CRT I don't know we'll just leave it like that though sounds like a vectrix those are cool I decided I'm determined to get this thing to boot straight to the CRT I don't want to use this LCD at all it's going to be super annoying so I've been researching the stuff on this board this chip here is a TV encoda chip it takes digital video and outputs analog video which is what this uses I searched and searched and searched all I could find was a product description I really needed to know what all the connections were for this and I could not find them online so I just had to go around and measure every single one with my oscilloscope and see if anything changes when I switch between the LCD and the CRT eventually I came across this very end pin here which is very hard to see on the camera but it's there I promise it's currently at 0 volts which is where that line is at the moment but then if I change over to TV mode all of a sudden it jumps up to 5 Vols so there's a chance that this pin alone might be able to make this thing boot straight to the CIT so I'm going to very carefully desolder this pin lift it up and see what happens well here it goes no does TV Mode still work no so all I've achieved there is making the CRT not work at all ever okay new plan I've decided to make something that will electronically press this button down for 3 seconds click down twice press enter again click up once and then press enter again every single time this thing turns on and the best way I can think of to do that is using a microcontroller or an uino or something like that except I have no programming knowledge whatsoever but luckily I know people so I sent a list of all of the microcontrollers that I've got to a friend of mine and we decided on this guy this is actually a Wi-Fi development board but we're not going to use the Wi-Fi it's just going to sit there and do nothing he wrote me a program based on what I wanted so all I had to do was send it to the board and now we're going to wire it up and hopefully it works now this has a bunch of pins on the bottom I don't need those so I'm going to get rid of them so I've got all the signals and the ground wire connected up I need to find somewh to connect the power wire too ideally this thing would like 5 or 6 volts that would be good just going to have a look at what power is this power light if I measure straight across this led I get 1.75 Vols that's fine for the LED but it's no good for this board but if I go a couple of steps back we find out that these components here are what are stepping down that voltage so I can go to here and I get 5.66 that's fine that's straight off the battery I reckon now just maybe this will work there's a 50/50 chance that it's going to be clicking that wheel the wrong direction and this is not going to work but hopefully hopefully even if the menu comes up that'll be great or just the LCD doesn't work at all that's right and if we go all the way back in time and put this screen back on then what happens I am worried this board here takes the battery voltage whatever that is it can be anything from about 2 volts up to 6 Vols and converts it to 5 volts for the logic board and - 19 Vols for the old LCD thankfully the schematic for the Game Boy is available online so I managed to figure out that this power board is not outputting the 5 volts that it's supposed to I don't know why that's decided to die on me or even if it's a problem with the motherboard still and it's just pulling this down I'm just going to wire a jumper across at the moment we won't have any voltage regulation but I'm using my benchtop power supply so I can just set the 5 volts manually for now Theus 19 Vols isn't required cuz we're using a new LCD not the old one okay the game going to boot ooh something smells hot it's not not good I don't want hot smells ow okay think we're in for bad times the part that's getting warm is the CPU it's an important thing that should not be getting warm my power supply still says no now that CPU is dead and that's really really disappointing yeah yeah the CPU is is is dead dead CPU well even with no CPU I can test whether the LCD thing is happening and all of that yeah so I got no image obviously cuz it's the CPU is not running so the whole thing is not running this powerboard works now so it it wasn't the powerboard that was at fault the CPU has fried seems like the arino didn't work either so that's great well after a whole bunch of back and forth with my programmer friend and me figuring out exactly what one notch on this wheel does watch this still garboard cuz we got no CPU yeah look at that it switches to the CRT without me touching anything all right now on to the biggest problem we've got this guy here I do have a whole bunch of game boys for spare Parts but uh not a single one of them has a motherboard none of the complete Game Boys I have are ones that I want to take a CPU from and that's where this guy comes in now before you get all upset cuz this is a really nice one I'm not getting rid of this one for good I'm just going to borrow the CPU I've got a really nasty conditioned one on its way from my friend osty at King kiju Collectibles once that arrives I'll take the CPU from that and put it back in to make this one a nice working one again but what even is this this isn't a Game Boy this is a super Game Boy this connects to a Super Nintendo so you can plug your Game Boy games in the top and then you get to play your game Game Boy games on your TV or in this case on a terrible reversing camera LCD inside the super Game Boy is this sgb CPU it's nearly the same as the DMG CPU that's inside a Game Boy it does do some stuff that the original Game Boy won't use but it can solder straight onto the motherboard and it'll work flawlessly except you miss out on the Nintendo boot screen which does speed up boot which is good but I like that pling at the beginning I just don't have a choice now even for desoldering you want lots of flux and then a bit of hot air and we'll see if we can lift this straight off wa that came off very quickly there we cook it down onto the Game Boy motherboard once it's cooled I get my microscope out and realize that half of the pins aren't actually connected and it's time to sold of those all down by hand this could be the first time that it works properly booting the game and switching to the CRT the game will start running before it gets to the CT but hopefully that's okay please please it works yes that's so good oh man I was so worried when that CPU stopped working but I've just saved it all right we got to do some assembly oh actually there's one more thing I need to know if this board actually boots without having this LCD connected ready yeah yes it does excellent okay that's so good well I want it to look something like this so first we're going to have to do some careful modification of the case now we're not covering the screen except for a kind of a little bit of an issue is that this board goes in here somewhere and that's going to cover the screen too however there's there's stuff on there that I need so I guess I'll just be careful there's a few things I'm going to have to reconnect now but that's okay a few to uncover so I can solder to them got some pretty rainbow wire this time there we go now I can put the controller Parts together d-pad Aton B and start and select speaker in I think that was probably glued in originally how about if I just misalign the keyway that should make it nice and sturdy in there I think yeah yeah there we go so now we've got our little Game Boy Controller Now is it going to fit on here there's quite a large gap there it's modification time yeah there we go and this will go on top you're going to take the board off the back of the CRT just so that I can sneak these wires through after that I'll put it back on again I don't want these wires to touch this heat sink so I'm just going to jam them through this a button and that'll keep them safe oh we can attach this now little bit of hot glue cover up this bit here because that's not really safe to leave exposed now that I've attached that together I probably need to thread this through somewhere would have been much easier beforehand oh oh check that out I got it through excellent It's not really where I wanted it but that'll be okay that's just sitting for now I'm not going to glue it down yet cuz I need to know the wiring now the back this is going to be a challenge I mean I'm going to use one of these for a start I'll put the motherboard where it's supposed to be I reckon I'll even be able to use the original power switch there I want to run this off a a batteries it'll probably run for like 3 seconds but I want to do it power board's going to have to relocate back to where it started out o I just saw a spark then nothing's connected to power though must have a capacitor somewhere hopefully that's not what killed the CPU last time just horribly tacking this back onto the other side because I can't be bothered clearing out the holes and doing it properly now we can come back here stop running away now I can stuff this board back down in where it belongs the video board seems like it wants to go here so it's glued there now and this board wants to be here oh I hope I don't short anything out let's just be care careful when we push this down I think oh no oh no I did a mistake I've glued this board down and I haven't attached these wires to it yet I hope that they're all available on the top I had the forart to take photos of both sides of this board before I cut it up and I'm so happy that I did cuz it means that I can find most of these places from the photos and not have to get to the other side of the board the last one is the speaker and um I hope I can still take this board out so using the schematic pin three on this audio amplifier is where this blue wire needs to go there's a little through hole here which I can connect to which gives me better access than trying to solder to one of those tiny pins and that's it that should be the wiring done I just need to figure out where these things are going to sit making some more space more space more space a that hit my hair which hurt heaps of course being here and not having nerves and all ooh I think I found space hot glue for you and I'm a little bit worried about using hot glue for this guy because it gets kind of warm and it might de glue itself so I'm just going to use double-sided tape instead it's probably going to still lose it stick with heat but at least I tried kind of maybe you can have some hot glue too so I've got a slight Gap to fix on this side too I wonder if I can just carve out the other half of the casing like I did before so hopefully there's lots of hopefully is in my videos I like being hopeful a little bit more trimming is required Maybe cut out for the headphones still don't know where these are going to go I didn't even think of that until right now are they going to fit in here somewhere I don't even know here we go this is looking like a thing that'll that'll sit there this will sit over here maybe they can hide up here yeah that's a good spot back up there before I do the final assembly I want to see if it still works I think that's important this is the first time we've run this on battery so I'm not certain that it'll work I'm just really hoping on oh that's not great I'll be honest I'll see if the batteries just aren't strong enough hey see if Energizer Max Plus is better oh oh yay it's running off batteries well let's uh turn that off before I use up my whole one half of 20 minutes it's assembly time some reason the AC adapter plug doesn't really line up might be because I don't have any screws in the motherboard just a suspicion that I have got get a connector here which may fit yep I'm going just leave that in there while I glue it all together and then it should be fine right gluing in the motherboard gluing in the everything ouch ouch ouch hot gluing myself seems to happen every time don't want to hot glue the volume ow ow ow ow ow okay I've I've hot glued myself a lot this is enough for this video all right that's the last hot gluing myself no more hot gluing myself this video a I've blocked up the headphone oh I've hot glued myself again ooh I do I do need to check that the controls work Looking Good Start works I can duck that's good I can't really test up but if all the others work then it means that it's probably fine yeah every button works it's kind of fun playing a game boy with an external controller I should really shorten these wires but I'm hoping I can just Jam them down in here instead because that'll be easier and a bit of hot glue I actually did manage to fix the pot with the engine oil in it all I had to do is crimp one of the terminals a bit better so we're keeping that in there now I've still got this mortally dangerous box sticking out the corner here I really need to cover it with something I reckon this will probably do it I need to go even closer I reckon yeah excellent no more more danger well probably got a few stringy bits to pull off before I'm happy with it look at this masterpiece how good is that it is a little bit of a handful I'll give you that but how good is it wait a minute wait a minute we got to have this on there except it's not dot matrix anymore it says c r t yeah we'll put the bottom one on too shall we there that's how you know it's Game Boy got the Game Boy bezel actually kind of looks better that's amazing the screen's gone a little bit skuff but um it's still actually better than the dot matrix display and most of that interference we saw before doesn't even seem to be there anymore I wonder how long the battery lasts for I'm hoping I can at least finish a couple of levels that would be excellent this is actually going okay I kind of expected this to only last a minute or so and then switch off but it's actually I mean I'm on level two oh there it goes now it's boot looping so the battery life isn't very long well I'm glad I left that AC adapter input because four batteries is not not enough for this thing to run they're actually kind of warm too and they are good ones they're expensive ones so there it is the CRT Game Boy the screen is legitimately good it actually looks better than the original dot matrix screen and you can play in the dark and it looks even better in the dark actually look at that it's got at least a couple of minutes of battery power and if you've got really big Pockets you might even be able to put it in one of them it even has a constant buzzing noise through the speaker regardless of whether the volume's up or down it has so many features all right so there's tons of reasons why nobody made any handheld game consoles with CRTs in them back in the day but I just did and I love it even if it is quite a bit crap so I've been collecting video games forever and I'm still buying stuff all the time if you want to see everything that I get I post a photo on float plane it's only a dollar a month and I'll see you there links in the description\n"