June 14, 2012

Backup your vintage Nintendo Game Boy cartridge data

 Alex found himself needing to backup the saved game contents of his Nintendo Game Boy cartridges, and solved this problem neatly with an Arduino. Apart from documenting the process very well, he also explores the technical details of the cartridges and how to read the contents of the memory chips. You can watch the process in his demonstration video:


As time progresses the problem of safekeeping data from older forms of media starts to rear its ugly head. Although this is 'only' a video game, it is an interesting catalyst to consider doing the same for more important forms of data. 

In the meanwhile, to backup your own cartridges you can do well with our Arduino-compatible hardware such as the Freetronics Eleven - the 100% Arduino Uno compatible with its own prototyping space right on the board:


To get started with the project or just review the excellent instructions, visit Alex's website here


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