hey chat, i've been thinking of making a couple long-form posts here and wanted to put something together for my gameboy camera setup, i got a new cable that does some neat stuff and figured now would be as good a time as any to write out a bunch of info.

the whole setup

i've been gathering a handful of items and upgrading my gameboy camera items over the past while, mostly since the pandemic started and it seemed that the popularity and interest really exploded. there is a great dedicated group of individuals who have researched and assembled projects to really take things to the next level.

one of the newest ones i have received, i knew of for a while and had tried getting to work in the past, but failed and didn't end up pursuing it further. someone mentioned having the same thing ready to go and willing to sell, so i purchased it off of them and realized it completed what i'm calling the "gameboy camera of theseus" set

the console

i was able to preorder an analogue pocket handheld when they were first announced, had it delivered very early on, and have been using it as my main gameboy camera device for a while now. it's a great device and lends itself very easily to the workflow that i've created for backing up and processing images. not much else to say, it's completely stock and all i've done is purchase a different handheld to use instead of the gameboy or any other console from nintendo.

the cartridge

apart from just buying a different console, this has been one of the greatest innovations to gameboy camera photography. the community has been able to completely redesign the cartridge experience with a new shell that allows for c/cs mount lenses, a custom flash pcb, and even a third-party camera app with increased functionality above what is on the original cartridge.

this specific cartridge is the 2bittoy, designed by community member and instagram user 2bitboy. the shell itself allows for a ring and filter to be installed in front of the sensor and have interchangeable lenses. this is possible to be used with a stock cartridge pcb, with no modifications.

the pcb is a custom design to enable different rom files to be flashed. notably, there was intended to be a hello kitty variation of the gameboy camera, which was never released. the rom file however does exist, and due to the creation of this flash pcb, was able to be used on real hardware (likely outside of nintendo's own testing) for the first time recently. another notable upgrade includes non-volatile memory, so the images can be stored without relying on a battery. it uses the same sensor as the original gameboy camera, and a couple pcb components need to be borrowed. it was designed by community member hdr.

the new camera software was designed by community member toxa/un_toxa. they continue to work with other users in the discord to improve and add functionality to the software, such as different methods of auto-balancing exposure to different sections of the image, or the one i was really interested in was 'auto-exposure bracketing' where the user can press one button to start a series of images in quick succession that adjust the exposure value, which after some post-processing to average the images together, will produce a 'high-dynamic range' image similar to what phones or other higher end cameras do today. having this functionality creates images in the end that are not exactly within the capability of the gameboy camera, but have the same resolution and capture the same sort of aesthetic.

the printer

this has been my most recent replacement piece that i have received, there is now a cable that was designed to interpret the print commands from the gameboy camera and essentially translate them into the commands for a modern point-of-sale receipt printer. i had purchased a kit for this a while back but it requires a level of soldering skill which i frankly do not have the time or equipment to attain, and had someone else attempt putting the kit together. some part of the assembly went wrong and my kit was fried. i ended up finding out around the same time that the prints with this were only completely black and white, which is even less color depth than expected with the four shades capable from the gameboy camera.

i found out recently that there was a custom firmware written for these to enable newer model printers to output in all four shades. this firmware was written by community member crizzlycruz, who is also on instagram as user 23kpixels. the kit itself was assembled by community member c0op3r, who allowed me to purchase it from them.

with the addition of the printer cable, i realized this finally replaced the majority of components such that next to nothing was remaining originally from nintendo. as mentioned the camera sensor, and the rom chip etc were borrowed from the cartridge itself, but the console, software, lens, and even image extraction have nothing associated with nintendo's original design.

the gameboy camera rules, hard

i want to make another post soon detailing my workflow and will include images at that time comparing the printer outputs and some of the images. of course none of this would be possible without the community discord server, and use of the online game boy camera gallery tool to store and manage images from community member herr_zatacke who is also on instagram as herr_gack.

please feel free to ask if you have any questions or anything i can help answer, i can also link you to the discord if you'd like to join and see all of the other great photos being posted and projects that others are still developing.