How to Upload a Rom to a Game Cartridge Gameboy

Play Homebrews on Your GBA

Employ Flash Linkers to put Game Boy Accelerate ROMs onto your organization .

So, let's say yous've fix upwardly a Game Boy Accelerate emulator [Hack #44] and begun to delve into enjoying the fruits of the vibrant GBA homebrew scene. But playing these games on your PC monitor just isn't enough—isn't in that location some way to get them from there onto the GBA SP sitting on your desk? Yes, there is. And information technology's easier than you lot might think (albeit a niggling expensive).

What you need is commonly referred to equally a wink linker . It'south a small device that connects to your PC and lets y'all write Game Boy Advance-uniform ROMs to what is known as a flash cart —a blank, rewriteable cartridge that volition piece of work with your GBA. These come in many unlike sizes from 64 Mb all the way up to i GB. The average user tends to buy either a 256 Mb or 512 Mb cartridge. The average GBA game is much smaller than this, merely you can write multiple games to a flash cart.

Alert

Most vendors will study the size of flash carts in megabits (Mb). So a 128 Mb cart is actually 16 megabytes (MB).

One major advantage to playing GBA homebrews via a flash linker is that they will play perfectly. You won't have to worry about adjusting emulator settings, wondering if the homebrew you're playing is but badly programmed or if there's something wrong with your emulator. What you run into is what you get on the existent GBA hardware.

Tip

Since the newly released Nintendo DS console has a GBA media port, the devices described next will all work in a Nintendo DS system. They cannot, however, be used to run Nintendo DS-specific homebrew content—only GBA programs. The wink devices volition also work in the Game Boy Player attachment that connects to the Nintendo GameCube and plays GBA games on a tv set.

Types of Wink Linkers and Carts

A few years ago, the nearly popular wink linker was called the Flash Advance Pro Linker, which was a bulky device that ran on six AA batteries and plugged into a computer'south printer port. The software, FA Writer, was included on an unmarked 3.5 inch floppy disk. No manufacturer's name or data could be plant on the box or manual. But the device worked flawlessly (if you lot didn't mind giving up your printer port to connect it, or the slow-as-molasses write speed).

Nowadays, the Flash Advance Pro Linker has been replaced by USB devices that are faster and smaller. Such devices include GBA X-ROM, EFA-Linker, and EZFlash Accelerate. They use a USB cable, which plugs into a mini-USB port on the flash cart itself, then attaches to an open USB port on your computer, eliminating the demand for a big external writing device. 256 Mb and 512 Mb versions are available for around $eighty and $130 each.

Other USB devices, similar the EZ-Wink II, shown in Figure 4-37, exercise feature an external author. Available sizes and prices are similar to the EFA-Linker. Another interesting culling for GBA gameplay is the SuperCard, which uses standard CompactFlash memory media. Only write the software to a CompactFlash card, insert information technology into the $sixty SuperCard, and plug the entire apparatus into your GBA.

Figure 4-37. The EZ-Wink 2 flash writer and 128 megabit cart

You can write original Game Boy and Game Boy Color ROMs to a flash carte du jour, merely they will not play on a Game Boy Advance unless you have a GB Bridge, which is a dongle that forces the GBA into classic Game Boy manner. More data on this device is available at http://www.gameboy-advance.net/flash_card/gb_bridge.htm. An alternate solution is to utilize a Game Boy emulator similar Goomba [Hack #47] .

Wink Linker Retailers

Web vendors who sell third-party Game Boy evolution products like flash linkers and carts tend to come up and go similar the wind. Information technology's hard to tell whether a flashy looking spider web site is reliable or whether the owners will but take your money and not deliver on their promises. Luckily, the diligent folks at the GBA development community http://www.gbadev.org, in addition to maintaining an archive of GBA homebrew projects, FAQs, and other information, have a section on their forum that features customer feedback on sites that sell flash equipment.

Every bit of this writing, retailers with contempo positive feedback on the forum include http://www.flashlinker.net, which sells both versions of the EFA-Linker; http://www.jandaman.com, which sells the EZFlash Accelerate and EZ-Wink 2 in many different sizes; and http://www.kicker.ca, a Canada-based site that sells the EFA-Linker and SuperCard. European homebrewers may wish to bank check out http://www.totalgba.com, which is based in the U.k. and sells both sizes of the EFA-Linker to all customers domestic and international.

Writing Games to your GBA

Each type of linker hardware will transport with its own software. Since much of it is adult exterior of the US, the English menus volition generally non be especially user-friendly. Again, the forums at http://www.gbadev.org will be of help should you run into any issues. Most writers will flash multiple ROMs to a cartridge at once, and automatically include a pocket-sized bill of fare programme then you tin switch betwixt them when yous boot up your GBA.

If for some reason you are unsatisfied with the software that shipped with your flash writer, there is a programme chosen LittleWriter (http://www.gameboy-advance.net/fal_soft/flash_advance_little_writer.htm), shown in Figure 4-38, that supports many popular flash devices. Advantages to using this program include existence able to delete individual ROMs without formatting the unabridged flash cart besides as automatic backup and rewriting of saved game data.

I common problem with wink carts is that they can become "locked" and any attempts to write software on them volition fail in mid-burn. If you think this has happened to you, 1 solution may be to insert the cartridge into your GBA and turn it on, leaving it on for a few minutes. If this does non work, LittleWriter has a function that volition attempt to repair your bill of fare—one more reason to employ it.

Another possible sticking point is that, while the game ROM data that you write to your flash carts should theoretically stay there until you delete or overwrite information technology, sometimes your saved game progress files will erase over time. The saved game data is typically written into volatile memory that only persists while the built-in bombardment backup maintains a full charge. If you lot're planning on playing a game long-term, exist sure to support your .sav files from your flash cart to your difficult drive.

Effigy iv-38. LittleWriter

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Source: https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/retro-gaming-hacks/0596009178/ch04s16.html

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