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The Ultimate Game Boy Talk[0] (listed in the page) is one of my favorite talks of all time. If you were to send this talk to someone, with basically just the v

by rtpg 9y ago

The Ultimate Game Boy Talk[0] (listed in the page) is one of my favorite talks of all time. If you were to send this talk to someone, with basically just the videe they could likely build a faithful Gameboy clone. It's so dense, easy to understand, and comprehensive. I'll listen to it form time to time and think about all the cool tricks it reveals. Super impressive to have that much knowledge for a system that only had a couple thousand programs ever written for it. [0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyzD8pNlpwI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyzD8pNlpwI

lathiat 9y ago
Can confirm
jerrre 9y ago
>Super impressive to have that much knowledge for a system that only had a couple thousand programs ever written for it. Released for it. Officially.
t0mek 9y ago
This talk inspired me to create a Game Boy emulator [1] and indeed it's enough to create a general design of each hardware subsystem (CPU, IRQ, Pixel Processor Unit, etc.) Also, the part about the pixel transfer is great, only few emulators implement it with FIFO queue, as presented, and this seems to be very accurate way. During the further work I needed more details (list of CPU opcodes, timing of the IRQs, a list of audio and timer bugs, etc.), but the list links to all required resources - as far as I know this is everything we know about the Game Boy at the moment. It doesn't mean the console is fully reverse-engineered - especially the STAT IRQ timings is still very hard to get right. Particularly interesting link is the "Pan Docs", moved and updated in the gbdev wiki [2]. Maybe it's not the best place to get the general information about the hardware, but it provides a lot of specifics. [1] https://github.com/trekawek/coffee-gb https://github.com/trekawek/coffee-gb [2] http://gbdev.gg8.se/wiki/articles/Pan_Docs http://gbdev.gg8.se/wiki/articles/Pan_Docs
djhworld 9y ago
I wrote a gameboy color emulator a few years ago https://github.com/djhworld/gomeboycolor https://github.com/djhworld/gomeboycolor Probably would require some effort to get it to build again, but it was a fun, if a little intense programming project. The architecture is very approachable, although I never got the sound working. There's no greater feeling of toiling away for months on the CPU/GPU/MMU code where you eventually reach the point where you can successfully boot the emulator into rendering the "Nintendo" logo that scrolls down the screen.

by rtpg 9y ago

lathiat 9y ago

Can confirm

jerrre 9y ago

>Super impressive to have that much knowledge for a system that only had a couple thousand programs ever written for it. Released for it. Officially.

t0mek 9y ago

This talk inspired me to create a Game Boy emulator [1] and indeed it's enough to create a general design of each hardware subsystem (CPU, IRQ, Pixel Processor Unit, etc.) Also, the part about the pixel transfer is great, only few emulators implement it with FIFO queue, as presented, and this seems to be very accurate way. During the further work I needed more details (list of CPU opcodes, timing of the IRQs, a list of audio and timer bugs, etc.), but the list links to all required resources - as far as I know this is everything we know about the Game Boy at the moment. It doesn't mean the console is fully reverse-engineered - especially the STAT IRQ timings is still very hard to get right. Particularly interesting link is the "Pan Docs", moved and updated in the gbdev wiki [2]. Maybe it's not the best place to get the general information about the hardware, but it provides a lot of specifics. [1] https://github.com/trekawek/coffee-gb https://github.com/trekawek/coffee-gb [2] http://gbdev.gg8.se/wiki/articles/Pan_Docs http://gbdev.gg8.se/wiki/articles/Pan_Docs

djhworld 9y ago

I wrote a gameboy color emulator a few years ago https://github.com/djhworld/gomeboycolor https://github.com/djhworld/gomeboycolor Probably would require some effort to get it to build again, but it was a fun, if a little intense programming project. The architecture is very approachable, although I never got the sound working. There's no greater feeling of toiling away for months on the CPU/GPU/MMU code where you eventually reach the point where you can successfully boot the emulator into rendering the "Nintendo" logo that scrolls down the screen.