GameBoy Color - increasing brightness?

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 4:36 am

Got a GameBoy color for free at a car boot sale (bought a cart for 50p ($1) and he gave me the console too!).

Brightness is ok, but it would be nicer if it were brighter. Opened system to see if there was anything obvious I could do (eg better bright LED, etc) but the screen part is stuck on really fast.

Is there anything I can do to increase the brightness (I don't know, change a resistor or whatever)?

All I could do was remove the clear window on the screen and put the old cover back on (windows do dull the picture very slightly) - the window was scratched so it didn't matter.

project_failure · Post by **project_failure** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 10:25 am

Your Gameboy Color has a backlight? None of mine do.

Post by **CronoTriggerfan** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 11:17 am

Yeah, the GBC isn't backlit, unless it's a Japanese-only GameBoy Light, which was a modified GB Pocket, in which case he's a retard for giving it away.

They sell for top dollar on eBay, especially some of the limited edition ones.

hailrazer · Post by **hailrazer** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 5:41 pm

Cars wear boots? And they are for sale?

And yea a GameBoy Color with backlight ??????

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 6:57 pm

hailrazer wrote:Cars wear boots? And they are for sale?

And yea a GameBoy Color with backlight ??????

"Car boot sales" in the UK are a bit like "yard sales" I guess in the USA. Anyway, your cars have "hoods" which in the UK means something you put over your head from a jacket to keep the rain off.

, also a "yard" is three feet in length (36"). There, doesn't make "cars wear boots" sound so daft now does it!!

I had assumed there was a backlight, thinking about it there isn't, which I guess means we can't make the screen brighter?

Dark-Aries · Post by **Dark-Aries** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 7:00 pm

You can try font lit LEDS...which I was and am going to do very soon..not to hard...Just have to find a place too hook up the leds too....if you find a spot can a post a pic of it please? Likewise if I find one when I'm working on it I'll post it...

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 7:04 pm

Problem is getting front-lit LED shining on the screen. I still have a front-lit small perspex sheet from an AfterBurner from an old GBA, which would do the job (other projects to do in the meantime!).

hailrazer · Post by **hailrazer** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 7:04 pm

bacteria wrote:
"Car boot sales" in the UK are a bit like "yard sales" I guess in the USA. Anyway, your cars have "hoods" which in the UK means something you put over your head from a jacket to keep the rain off. , also a "yard" is three feet in length (36"). There, doesn't make "cars wear boots" sound so daft now does it!!

I had assumed there was a backlight, thinking about it there isn't, which I guess means we can't make the screen brighter?

I didn't put the smile face icons on because I was being a smarta$$

And you don't have to tell me that we Americans have totally ruined the English language. It's one of my pet peeves.

Oh and I used to mod Neo Geo Pocket Colors with the Afterburner front light. If you can find one it would work fine with the GBC also.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 7:07 pm

bacteria wrote:Anyway, your cars have "hoods" which in the UK means something you put over your head from a jacket to keep the rain off.

*cough*Hood means both here.*cough* Just because you guys can't handle having one word mean different things doesn't mean we can't.

Post by **CronoTriggerfan** » Mon Aug 04, 2008 8:15 pm

Some lower brightness frosted (for better light distribution) LEDs front-lit would be fine, I assume. Just make sure it's not back-lit with 'em; I'm sure you probably know this, but it'll wash the screen out big time.

Post by **Skyone** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:31 am

Apparently you haven't been gaming for very long, have you?

*expects 2 paragraph post talking about experiences with Galaga and Pitfall!*

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:53 am

hailrazer - It's better to have American English rather than American German. After America got its independence, apparently the people voted on ditching English all together in preference to German; it was a close call. How the world would have been different now....

vskid - Actually, a fair bit of English humour (yes, hailrazer, "humour" not "humor"

) is based on wordplay and we have a massive amount of words in our beloved language with multiple meanings and thrive on it!

CronoTriggerfan - Experimented with some items just now:

* Low bright white LED - useless.

* Ultra bright white LED - no effect if put on side of LCD, no effect if light is put through side of the AfterBurner perspex. If LED is above the screen by an inch or two the screen has better colours, but the point is not to have external LED's.

* AfterBurner - doesn't work on 1.5v (hoping it might as less light then), works 3v or 4.5v fine. Works, but colours are quite washed out. Best solution so far, but far from ideal. Better than standard GBC colours.

Perhaps that is the best you can get - like with the GBA with AfterBurner - choice of dark (normal) or washed out. Oh well. BTW - sound is quite muted too.

Interestingly, don't the GB and GBC look like a system we might make here? Might have been a popular system but they do look rather home-made!