A Beginners Guide to Modding Game Boys

For those of you who are not familiar with modding vintage gaming systems, the Nintendo Game Boy DMG Original (DMG) is one of the most iconic and memorable hand held gaming consoles. There are a variety of mods that will sharpen, enhance, speed up, slow down and illuminate your game play. Here you will find a list of the basic into mods to get yourself familiar and educated about what is available to you.

Equipment List:

Optional:

Backlighting

    Backlighting your Game Boy is one of the best and easiest mods you can attempt. This mods illuminates your screen from behind with an acrylic light guide panel. SMD LED's light the panel in many different colors and give you control  over playing your console at night. LED's take minimal power and will not reduce your battery life much at all. The mod begins with a basic breakdown of the outer shell and circuitry to expose and free the front primary circuit board (PCB). Remove a few more screws to get to the underbelly of the LCD. Peel off the film on the back, clean, and insert the back lighting panel. A film  slips in between and you are ready to close her up! Minimal soldering is required.

    V3 Backlight

     

    Bivert

    The biversion/bivert mod aim to invert and enhance your pixels. A hex inverter is soldered and stored in the case to achieve this. Attempting this  modification will leave an unilluminated screen inverted, so make sure to pair with a backlight to get a normal orientation and the best looking gaming experience. A higher level of soldering skill is required to complete this mod; some of the bivert chips are very small. 

    Bivert Chip

    Pro Sound

    Pro sound mods remove the in between connections between the output and the source signals from the sound. Simply solder 3 wires to the back PCB and run your 3.5mm stereo panel mount jack or R and L phono jacks to the outside of the case. This mod claims to produce clearer, louder sound. 

    Pro Sound RCA
    Pro Sound 3.5mm

    Audio Amplifiers

    Audio amplifiers will simply make your speaker output louder. You will need a louder speaker in order to really appreciate the mod. Adding additional power requirements may also lead to you install a voltage regulator to keep everything running smoothly.

    Game Boy Amplifier


    Variable Game Play Speed/Pitch

    This mod requires the use of an LTC1799 module. This module will allow the game play and therefore pitch to change with the turn of a knob. Add a 250K to 500K potentiometer to speed up or slow down your game. This mod is a little more complex and requires more soldering. Sometimes you will need to remove the speaker from the case in order to get some potentiometers to fit.

    250K Potentiometer Generic Guitar Potentiometer A250k 16mm Base Dia 18mm Shaft Pack of 10pcs
    500K Potentiometer
    LTC1799 Module

    Beauty Treatment

    Adding colored backlights, buttons and screens are a nice way to give your newly modded game boy that wow factor. Here is a list of well known websites that offer custom DIY gear for your game boys and other consoles.

    These are the basic mods to get you started. There are other mods that include illuminating your case and installing special outputs for music production and performances. You can hook up console controllers, keyboards and other video projection devices. Other Nintendo Game Boy consoles can also be modded such as the Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and Game Boy Advance SP.