gba sp tv out

[Samson]

my friend managed to break off the top half of his 1st gen (red) gba sp. he doesn't want to fix it so we want to hook it up to his tv. sound would be easy (headphone adapter, headphone to tv adapter). composite ouy looks harder. i know there's a composite pin somewhere on the board but haven't been able to find anything. we don't really care if the video is bad as long as it's playable

maybe we could wire it through the ext2 port...does anyone know what all the ext2 pins are for?

thanks in advance, Samson

[Basement_Modder]

Doesn't exist.

[XCVG]

It's theoretically possible, in fact it's been done on similar devices, but it's not something someone with you amount of brain power would be capable of doing.

I'm sorry, did I post that?

[Samson]

Yes, you did. I've made one (two now, haha, I can count) posts in these forums and you've already decided I'm too stupid? What sort of stupid thing did I say? I've looked all over the Internet and I know nobody else seems to be able to do it...that's why I wanna try

[palmertech]

These guys givin' you a hard time? Lemme smack 'em. :SMACK:



Here are the needed pins on the LCD connector, and what they do:

[01] -- :
[02] /VSYNC: vertical sync / frame start (SPS)
[03] -- :
[04] -- :
[05] LDB1 : 5 bit Blue data
[06] LDB2 .
[07] LDB3 .
[08] LDB4 .
[09] LDB5 .
[10] LDG1 : 5 bit Green data
[11] LDG2 .
[12] LDG3 .
[13] LDG4 .
[14] LDG5 .
[15] LDR1 : 5 bit Red data
[16] LDR2 .
[17] LDR3 .
[18] LDR4 .
[19] LDR5 .
[20] -- :
[21] -- :
[22] /DCK : Data sampling clock signal / dot clock

All you need to do is tap these signals and build a custom encoder box to read those signals and put out composite. Not a simple task, it will take at least $100 or so worth of parts for you to build, and you may as well just buy a GBA and a GBA TV converter if you really want GBA on a TV. That, or a gamecube with a GB Player.

[Samson]

lol. i saw a picture of the pin...oh well, guess it was fake. I'm not spending $100...maybe $15 to get his screen replaced lol. thanks for the help.

[palmertech]

Did the pics of the pin also have RGB? You may have seen a pic of a GBA TV converter board, there are a few labeled with composite and RGB lines floating around, and there has been at least one time when somebody has mistaken it for a close up of a GBA board.

You can take the light panel out of the SP and install it in an original GBA though, using the guide made by Bibin using my technique.

[Samson]

oh. lol...I don't have any original GBAs to mess with

[Master Kirby]

These guys givin' you a hard time? Lemme smack 'em. :SMACK:



Here are the needed pins on the LCD connector, and what they do:

[01] -- :
[02] /VSYNC: vertical sync / frame start (SPS)
[03] -- :
[04] -- :
[05] LDB1 : 5 bit Blue data
[06] LDB2 .
[07] LDB3 .
[08] LDB4 .
[09] LDB5 .
[10] LDG1 : 5 bit Green data
[11] LDG2 .
[12] LDG3 .
[13] LDG4 .
[14] LDG5 .
[15] LDR1 : 5 bit Red data
[16] LDR2 .
[17] LDR3 .
[18] LDR4 .
[19] LDR5 .
[20] -- :
[21] -- :
[22] /DCK : Data sampling clock signal / dot clock

All you need to do is tap these signals and build a custom encoder box to read those signals and put out composite. Not a simple task, it will take at least $100 or so worth of parts for you to build, and you may as well just buy a GBA and a GBA TV converter if you really want GBA on a TV. That, or a gamecube with a GB Player.

Palmertech, where did you get that pinout? Do you know how the GBA controls the screen using those pins? Do you know of any good sources that explain how this works?

Here is a wild guess. The Red, Green, and Blue data describe the color of a single pixel. Starting at the top left pixel,the pixel is set to the specified color. When the dot clock is pulsed the selected pixel location moves to the next one on the right, and that pixel is set to the next specified color, and so on until the whole row has been colored. When the vertical sync pulses, the next row down is selected, and those pixels are colored. This process would occur extremely fast, so that all the pixels are constantly refreshed one pixel at a time and one row at a time, so that you just see the whole screen changing.

Anyone know if thats at all close to how it actually works?

[palmertech]

Got it from a cache of a site where a guy made both a GBA video capture card, and a gameboy pocket capture card. His site has been down for a few weeks, though. He has full schematics and info, but obviously, not helpful with no images.

And to be honest, I would have almost no idea how to make that work. I just wanted to give him at least some sort of info to ponder, and to convince him this is beyond his skillz (It is certainly beyond mine!)

[Master Kirby]

Too bad. That would be interesting to know how to do. If you still have a link to his site, can you PM them to me? If it comes back up I'd like to take a look.

[palmertech]

Here is a link: http://www.bripro.com/low/hardware/vidc ... p?page=gba" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hopefully the site goes back up!

[mog123]

Here is a link: http://www.bripro.com/low/hardware/vidc ... p?page=gba" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hopefully the site goes back up!

You can always use archive.org

http://web.archive.org/web/200708040405 ... p?page=gba" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;