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DIY Engineer Puts Game Boy Advance SP Innards in Original Game Boy Case

This article is over 14 years old and may contain outdated information

What do you do when your old Game Boy finally craps out? Take out its insides and put a Game Boy Advance SP in its place, of course.

Case mods and hardware hacking is just not my forte, but I love to hear about the engineering exploits of others. A hacker by the name of Jackson had an original Game Boy that had stuck with him for years, but he was wondering what to do with it when it dies. He got the idea of taking out all of the components and replacing them with the hardware from a Game Boy Advance SP. The screen is color instead of monochrome and the processor is way more powerful. He made sure to line up the cartridge slot, but the new Frankenstein Game Boy uses the buttons, speakers and switches of the original case. All in all, Jackson did a wonderful job updating the 1989 Game Boy to at least 2003 (when the DS Advance came out.)

Kudos to Jackson for pulling it off. While it’s not quite so amazing as MacGyver making a bomb with an avocado and a hamster, the ability to mod electronics is something that will always impress me.

Now, maybe I can get Jackson to fix my Samsung monitor that starting flickering on and off a few months ago. I know that it’s just a capacitor or something that’s fried but I don’t have the chops to take apart the case and solder a new one on.

Source: Bacteria via Hack a Day

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