There have been countless video games released over the decades that were exclusive to portable, handheld consoles and were never ported to home consoles. Almost the entire Pokémon franchise prior to the release of the Nintendo Switch, for example. That’s a shame, because playing games on a big TV while relaxing on the couch is a much more pleasant experience. To enjoy that experience while playing Game Boy Advance titles, GouldFish converted a broken Nintendo DS Lite into a GBA home console.
If you want to play Game Boy Advance games on a home console, there are easier ways to do it. You could turn to emulation or, if you prefer real hardware and have a Game Cube, you can purchase a Game Boy Player accessory. But GouldFish’s project is still really cool. It runs GBA games on real hardware and is potentially more affordable than a Game Cube with the Game Boy Player.
GouldFish chose a Nintendo DS Lite as the starting point for this project, as they accept GBA cartridges and are pretty affordable — especially if you can find one with a broken screen, as GouldFish did. The DS Lite also supports a number of mods that were important for this build.
The first of those was a “TV Out” board, which takes advantage of an unused feature of the DS Lite: composite video output. The board can take the video signal from either the top or bottom screen, then output that through composite to a CRT TV. It carries audio, too. In this case, GouldFish set it to the top screen, which shows the GBA game screens. A simple mod (adding a single resistor) disables the bottom screen, so it doesn’t turn on for no reason.
Another important mod was the addition of a SNES controller adapter from Inside Gadgets, which connects an SNES controller’s button outputs to the DS Lite’s button pins. Also from Inside Gadgets was another mod, which lets the DS Lite run on external power without the battery in place.
To tie that all together, GouldFish designed and fabricated a custom PCB. It hosts the SNES controller adapter and has a power switch and power LED, both of which are connected to the DS Lite mainboard. GouldFish then put all of that into a 3D-printed enclosure of his own design, which takes styling cues from both the GBA and the DS Lite. It looks really nice, with an “indigo” purple and white paint job.
Now GouldFish can play Game Boy Advance games from the comfort of his couch, using an SNES controller and display the video in large CRT glory.