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attached is a PCB breakout board I designed. You slide this PCB into the cartridge slot of the Game Gear and you get access to all the pins.

I used this when playing around with making custom PCB for the Game Gear started with breadboard prototyping.

I made an audio Bluetooth board so I could sync my game gear with my phone and play 8bit music with true game gear quality sound!

It also helped tinker with games that had multiple chips and batteries. It also helped me hook up and oscope and analyzer to all the pins.

I think this could be helpful to someone out there making their own games or other accessories.

What I really wanted to build with it was to first program a game that would save button presses and then you could read the saved buttones presses to another microcontroller on a breadboard. Then do something with them. Something like making the Game Gear into a remote controller would be fun. Maybe some day I'll get around to it.

The file is a fritzing file.

anways Enjoy,

GameGear breakout1.jpg (112.15 KB)

GG breakout board

GameGear breakout2.jpg (116.97 KB)

GameGear breakout3.jpg (337.01 KB)

GG Kart Testing Pins - long.zip (96.21 KB)

This is so excellent!! Great work, these are my favorite kind of Hardware mods.
Would you care to share other work you've done like the Bluetooth adapter? I've been thinking of doing something similar and incorporating a simple FM radio :)

EDIT: the routing software that you're using (Fritzing) seems to be a little obscure here. And it doesn't look like they'll be making anything compatible with more widely used ones like KiCAD, Eagle, or Altium: http://fritzing.org/forum/thread/6174/

That's a bummer, cuz I can't use this at all for development. Would you ever consider doing this work in Eagle?

Fritzing still works well, but yes, it's not getting any more official updates. I've moved onto kicad, so maybe would update to that. Is there something you'd want added to the board?

I used this audio board. It's super simple to test, just connect 5V power and the audio L/R to the GG audio L/R pins and it works. The screen will be black.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K85FW4G/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?i...

Here is the BT audio working
https://www.facebook.com/gamegearconsole/videos/1855674711348917/

I also forgot to post that you'll need to make a shimmy to get the pinout board to fit properly. I ended up 3d printing a game gear cartridge I found on thingiverse and them modified it till it fit snug. It's the white cartridge you can barely seen in one picture I attached.

Here was the GG FM unit.

Now looking at the picture, this FM unit made me so mad. I thought it was going to play the music through the GG, but as you can see it just pulls power and ground! lame

18891642_1871385613111160_5157108736234023897_o.jpg (115.73 KB)

doublehacker wrote

Fritzing still works well, but yes, it's not getting any more official updates. I've moved onto kicad, so maybe would update to that. Is there something you'd want added to the board?
.

KiCAD would be much better! If you can release the files I'll make any changes or upgrades to improve the project :)

Doublehacker - that is horrible!! I cant believe it, it doesnt even use the GG speaker :o

doublehacker wrote

Here was the GG FM unit.

Now looking at the picture, this FM unit made me so mad. I thought it was going to play the music through the GG, but as you can see it just pulls power and ground! lame

I bet you could build a modern representation if you really wanted to. replaced the dial and some other functions with a micro controller and write a small rom that would allow you to control the radio from software using the GG. Would be a fun little experiment to do at home for sure I think.

Author	Message
doublehacker Joined: 21 Feb 2017 Posts: 11	Game Gear Breakout Board Posted: Mon Aug 05, 2019 1:04 am
doublehacker Joined: 21 Feb 2017 Posts: 11	attached is a PCB breakout board I designed. You slide this PCB into the cartridge slot of the Game Gear and you get access to all the pins. I used this when playing around with making custom PCB for the Game Gear started with breadboard prototyping. I made an audio Bluetooth board so I could sync my game gear with my phone and play 8bit music with true game gear quality sound! It also helped tinker with games that had multiple chips and batteries. It also helped me hook up and oscope and analyzer to all the pins. I think this could be helpful to someone out there making their own games or other accessories. What I really wanted to build with it was to first program a game that would save button presses and then you could read the saved buttones presses to another microcontroller on a breadboard. Then do something with them. Something like making the Game Gear into a remote controller would be fun. Maybe some day I'll get around to it. The file is a fritzing file. anways Enjoy, GameGear breakout1.jpg (112.15 KB) GG breakout board GameGear breakout2.jpg (116.97 KB) GameGear breakout3.jpg (337.01 KB) GG Kart Testing Pins - long.zip (96.21 KB)

segasonicfan Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 374 Location: USA	Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2019 4:07 pm
	This is so excellent!! Great work, these are my favorite kind of Hardware mods. Would you care to share other work you've done like the Bluetooth adapter? I've been thinking of doing something similar and incorporating a simple FM radio :) EDIT: the routing software that you're using (Fritzing) seems to be a little obscure here. And it doesn't look like they'll be making anything compatible with more widely used ones like KiCAD, Eagle, or Altium: http://fritzing.org/forum/thread/6174/ That's a bummer, cuz I can't use this at all for development. Would you ever consider doing this work in Eagle?

doublehacker Joined: 21 Feb 2017 Posts: 11	Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2019 5:49 pm
doublehacker Joined: 21 Feb 2017 Posts: 11	Fritzing still works well, but yes, it's not getting any more official updates. I've moved onto kicad, so maybe would update to that. Is there something you'd want added to the board? I used this audio board. It's super simple to test, just connect 5V power and the audio L/R to the GG audio L/R pins and it works. The screen will be black. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K85FW4G/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?i... Here is the BT audio working https://www.facebook.com/gamegearconsole/videos/1855674711348917/ I also forgot to post that you'll need to make a shimmy to get the pinout board to fit properly. I ended up 3d printing a game gear cartridge I found on thingiverse and them modified it till it fit snug. It's the white cartridge you can barely seen in one picture I attached.

doublehacker Joined: 21 Feb 2017 Posts: 11	Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2019 6:06 pm
doublehacker Joined: 21 Feb 2017 Posts: 11	Here was the GG FM unit. Now looking at the picture, this FM unit made me so mad. I thought it was going to play the music through the GG, but as you can see it just pulls power and ground! lame 18891642_1871385613111160_5157108736234023897_o.jpg (115.73 KB)

segasonicfan Joined: 05 Jan 2006 Posts: 374 Location: USA	Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2019 6:12 pm
	doublehacker wrote Fritzing still works well, but yes, it's not getting any more official updates. I've moved onto kicad, so maybe would update to that. Is there something you'd want added to the board? . KiCAD would be much better! If you can release the files I'll make any changes or upgrades to improve the project :) Doublehacker - that is horrible!! I cant believe it, it doesnt even use the GG speaker :o

IllusionOfMana Joined: 08 Sep 2018 Posts: 270	Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2019 7:47 pm
IllusionOfMana Joined: 08 Sep 2018 Posts: 270	doublehacker wrote Here was the GG FM unit. Now looking at the picture, this FM unit made me so mad. I thought it was going to play the music through the GG, but as you can see it just pulls power and ground! lame I bet you could build a modern representation if you really wanted to. replaced the dial and some other functions with a micro controller and write a small rom that would allow you to control the radio from software using the GG. Would be a fun little experiment to do at home for sure I think.

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