MP3 NEON - Game Boy Advance

Hardware

Software

Development

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The Nintendo Game Boy Advance is a popular handheld video game system. In this project is a display where all information about MP3 is viewed. The LCD of GBA is 240x160 pixel with 65.000 color. The GBA with a price below $40 (for used units) is the cheapest color LCD that you can get!

To use the GBA like LCD display in MP3 NEON project is necessary have a custom program running in the GBA and a modified MPXPLAY program. The PC and GBA communicate through an especial cable connected in LPT port and in GBA link port. The program running in the GBA receives data from MPXPLAY and display in LCD of GBA. The GBA have a special feature called multiboot which made possible load a program in internal RAM without need of any cartridge inserted. To use multiboot in GBA you need the xboo cable and the program xboo for DOS (Thanks to Martin Korth who made the xboo program download here). There is a windows version, but the MP3 NEON project run only in DOS. The pins of LPT ports are connected directly to the pins of GBA link port without resistors. Remember PC voltage is 5V and GBA voltage is 3V. But how LPT PC port is impedance protected there are not problem with it. (Do it on you own risk, the author is not responsible of any damage.)

Normal SIO mode is used to transfer data of PC to GBA. In this mode is possible made transfer of 8 and 32 bits. Only 8 bits transfer is used in MP3 NEON project. More information about this SIO mode is here. The picture show the transfer of character "M". PC is acting like Master and GBA like slave.