Sega Gamegear non-portable

Zhooibaal · Post by **Zhooibaal** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 2:45 pm

Hey,

I just got this silly little idea to make a non-portable console out of a portable one. The other way around

You see, I have a Sega Gamegear with a busted screen. I think it must be possible to get RGB output from it and so I should be able to hook it up to a TV, plug a cable in the headphone output, plug it in the tv and get playing.
To do this I would take off the casing, build a new casing with a seperate body and controller.
It wouldn't need the battery holding part anymore, it's busted too anyway. I could fix that, but I'm to lazy to put effort in it since I'm not taking it anywere anyway even if the screen was working.
I can make use of a machine that makes plastic shapes at work to make a new casing unit for both the console and the controller, which, ofcourse, will be detachable from the main unit with some simple connector.
When it's done (if ever) I could place it next to, or on top of my Atari Jaguar, might look interesting.
What do you think?

--Zhooibaal

Jeff · Post by **Jeff** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 2:54 pm

Its been done (LOL)

jeroen · Post by **jeroen** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 2:55 pm

Well it is a fun idea. But wasen't the gamegear a portable version of some sega console. Thus your making a console out of a portable made after a console.

Edit: ^he posted when I was posting.

Zhooibaal · Post by **Zhooibaal** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 3:23 pm

I know the Gamegear is based on the mastersystem, but that doesn't make it less fun to recreate it into a mastersystem

like...

TGS · Post by **TGS** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 3:29 pm

The Game Gear is different enough from the Master System for there to be no compatability between between carts... so go for it. The Game Gear has more colours I believe.

I assume you are going to be outputting to a TV right? a lot of people have had trouble doing this, unless you can find some developer hardware. I think the best someone has achieved is black and white, unfortunately I cannot remember the website for it.

G-force · Post by **G-force** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 4:25 pm

I really like this idea, and would do it with an old GG if it was only possible to get video and audio off the board. So far it's not, butthis guy tried itanf got interesting results. It's too bad we can't just buy one of those video boards that developers used.

Here is some interesting stuff I read on a ClassicGaming.com GameGear FAQ

* Another odd hardware is the Wide Gear, a device that let's you connect
your Game Gear to a TV and plug even a Genesis controller for playing !?!
This thing is huge but at least it does work (and how !!) but it's too
expensive to buy (more than a 1,000$). Many of you contacted me to ask me
where you can find a Wide Gear, Sorry to say i don't know !!! PLEASE don't
ask me this question anymore. I read the story of this gadget in one of
the Electronic Gaming Magazines which had a picture. Better ask SEGA or
EGM, maybe they know ? And good luck in your search !
* Marlin Bates & Tom Cronin sent this UNIQUE info: There exist a board
developer's Game Gear with a modification for TV out - the entire circuit
board fits easily within one of the battery compartments. It plays games
on a TV set just fine - there's is a border around the action, but every-
thing is clean and viewable. It also have (for some reason) the Game Gear
developer's hardware - consists of two cards to plug into a PC, an In-
Circuit Emulator, a 5.25" floppy (presumably containing an assembler) and
a LARGE circuit board - with composite video out.
And Chris Pepin sent this info: In an older issue of EGM I believe, they
showed a Game Gear modified by Sega to have RCA outputs on it to allow
playing Game Gear Games on TV. They jammed a couple of extra circuit
boards into the battery compartments. Theoretically, almost anybody
should be able to modify their GG to have Composite output. Just as long
as one knew exactly where on the circuit board to tap to get the correct
signals. Unfortuantly, I don't remember which issue it was in.

Sorry for the text formatting

Oh hey, just found thiswhile looking around. Assuming it is nothing more than a board that rearranges the pins (like a famicom to NES converter) you might be able to use it backwards to play GG games on a Master System. Just tossing a dumb idea out there.

usbcd36 · Post by **usbcd36** » Tue Jan 03, 2006 4:29 pm

TGS wrote:The Game Gear is different enough from the Master System for there to be no compatability between between carts... so go for it. The Game Gear has more colours I believe.

First statement: FALSE http://portablesofdoom.org/alt.php scroll all the way to the bottom
Second statement: True. Also see the article on POD.

Zhooibaal · Post by **Zhooibaal** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 3:45 am

Well, I'm not very advanced on the electronics myself, but I know a few people who are and what they said to me is that converting something to composite video is mostly not the toughest thing to accomplish. So if that can be done it's just a matter of building a new casing and the unit would be pretty much done.
A good thing of converting it this way around is that the casing can be kept very small because of the small internals.
I think it's going to take quite some time to exactly figure out how the video signal of the Gamegear works before it can be converted to composite video, but I think it can be done with some excessive prototyping and testing, but if it ever gets done I will post pictures of the progress and all schematics we created to test and eventually post the final unit.
And it wouldn't even be so bad if the unit would be fried because of mistakes, Gamegears aren't very hard to come by and mostly they're being sold for relatively low prices. I got the one I have for free with my NeoGeo Pocket Color. The seller of the NGPC wanted to get rid of it anyway, so I took it

Unidentified Assilant · Wed Jan 04, 2006 4:43 am

The TV Tuner can be modded to give AV Out, I have a Gamegear... so this might be something good to try...

Zhooibaal · Post by **Zhooibaal** » Wed Jan 04, 2006 5:29 am

I found this: http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2539
I have already contacted this guy Xavier on this forum and I hope he replies anytime soon as this seems to be very interesting for whatever I'm trying to accomplish.

@Unidentified Assilant: can you tell me more about modifying the TV Tuner? I don't have a TV-Tuner (yet) but I want one anyway, so if I come by one that might actually be another interesting option to try (but that only if I can find more than one TV-Tuner).

Zhooibaal · Post by **Zhooibaal** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 3:28 am

I have another question: where could I find a lead on how I could connect somekind of external controller to the GameGear? I read something that it's possible to use a NES, Famicom or hacked Genesis controller, but it didn't say anything on how it could be done.

The other option would be to create my own controller by connecting somekind of connector (DB9 for instance) to all points on the gamegear board and connect corresponding buttons on the other side.

Which one would be the best to? Allthough my own controller would obviously be the cooler thing to do, I think it might be easier to use an existing one.

The last option could be to try to detach the part of the gamegear board where the controll buttons (and the D-pad) are located and put it in an external case, but I don't know (yet) if that can be done.

NiN^_^NiN · Post by **NiN^_^NiN** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 4:16 am

The Game Gear is a master system with a beefed up graphics chip the games aren't compatiable from GG to SMS as it ask for a diff value when it request colour altho it has been done and it the GG game shows up on the SMS but its wrong colours and unplayable.

But the GG is backwards compatiable it has a SMS mode where it uses the standard colour values so sms games can be plugged into it to play.

Now the GG had the video out mod that was done ages ago which didn't work that well.

But a guy recently got it to work and posted it on www.smspower.org forums (the best SMS GG etc site ever)

http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewtopi ... &start=120

as u posted above this does work and there are plans on how to build this altho they have 1 or 2 errors.

But if you don't know much about electronics then i wouldnt bother

Zhooibaal · Post by **Zhooibaal** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 5:33 am

That is exactly the topic I found and the parts have been ordered from Farnell and I'm getting help from someone who is pretty advanced in electronics.
I don't really care if the colors aren't completely flawless, as long as it works I'm happy.
But as I understand it the GG control pad works about the same as the Famicom control pad. So would it be that he just connected the dataline of the Famicom control pad (which is basicly the same as the NES control pad) to the internal dataline of the GG's control pad?
I don't read Japanese, if I would I would have read his own documentation on the mod.

This mod is found here: http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewtopi ... c&start=60

gamefunatic · Post by **gamefunatic** » Thu Jan 05, 2006 1:03 pm

technically you could just find the video and audio wires leading out from the cartridge slot, unsolder them cut them tie the insides (of the wire) to the insides of monster cables, make them long and hook them into the tv...did that come out clear? what-so-ever?

Zhooibaal · Post by **Zhooibaal** » Fri Jan 06, 2006 3:15 am

If it would be that easy Xavier wouldn't have gone through all that trouble of designing a schematic with 3 flip-flops and 4 NAND ports that is connected to pin 10 en 30 of ASIC 2 of the GG to get RGB color out of it

My question now is, how could I connect an external controller like in the picture. The RGB output will be done, but the controller part is the "problem" now. Not really a problem though, more like a challenge

With a pinout of both ASIC 1 and ASIC 2 (for the 2 ASICs version that is) it should be possible to do it.