Gameboy housing a DS

Last update: Thu Jun 5 22:25:41 2025

One day maybe ...

Links and disclaimer

I have that old GB brick now empty of its content (screen dead), I have that old Nintendo DS 1st version that was ugly from the start and has a broken screen connector ... Shall we reuse one for the other?
Apparently doable, seing the piece of art this gentleman made:

Details http://www.bacman.co.uk/bacforum/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=1322 FAAAAAAIL Bacman closed his forum, nothing left.

Youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9KrlGChPy8

Now some other pointers:

Another guy who had the idea: https://fibbefcreations.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/the-nintendo-s-a-work-in-progress/

Same same: https://facelesstech.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/turn-broken-nintendo-ds-into-gameboy-advance/

More: https://fibbefcreations.wordpress.com/2014/05/08/the-nintendo-s-a-work-in-progress/

And again a gtranslated

Things to know

Screen

A DS can run with only one screen but you must trick it to think other screen is attached: put a resistor in lieu of the pins for the backlight (maybe in fact a protection to avoid short or whatever?)

If you keep the bottom and dump the top screen: locate on the board the pins LEDC2 and LEDA2 which are the Cathode(-) and Anode(+) of the backlight of screen 2. On the v1 fat DS, it's to the top right next ot the Start button. Any resistor will go, I put a 1kOhm and works fine. Some people put a led+resistor, up to you.

If you keep the top and dump the bottom screen: same, with LEDC1 and LEDA1, which is at the top-side around the lower part of the main board, slightly off-centered to the right.

The mother board of a v1 NintendoDS (one I use in my case)

How I wired the hacked bottom of the original GB brick to reuse most of the buttons: yellow = gnd, orange = how to join the gnd together to get it everywhere, pink = signal

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