Online Multiplayer on the Game Boy

Amazing! Next up, trading pokemon online!

[@alantrotter6762]

Man thatd be sweet!

[@Sth0r]

poke league online...

[@Elitekross]

U could also do battles

[@knoptop]

good to see you here!

[@RichardNobel]

Sadly, Nintendo might see that as competition to their Pokémon Bank (?) service... 😜 and yet again *ban* the video (like they did/tried with the Game&Watch hacking video 😢).

[@LiveOverflow]

how is this video still not going viral?!

[@stacksmashing]

The game is rigged!!

[@devhonk1722]

Let it wait 5 years and it will be chosen by the algorithmn.

[@iamstickfigure]

Needs a more flashy title and thumbnail. "I made Tetris 99 on the original GameBoy?!?!??!" Lol.

[@RegenerationOfficial]

well, you have to do it yourself then

[@CorvusPrudens]

I know, right? This is nuts!

[@Kaceydotme]

This is incredible for preservation. You've just taken the first step toward making GB/GBC/GBA multiplayer so much more accessible for future generations.

[@Wheagg]

Preservation isn't exactly the first thing I would think of but it technically counts

[@TANMAN9095]

What a boring dystopia. Interacting with a human in person is considered a relic of the past.

[@Kaceydotme]

@@TANMAN9095 lol more like people outside the hobby don’t care about game boy games, and the few that do don’t have access to two consoles, two games and a link cable. And one day, those will start to fail.... but okay, phone bad, go off

[@TANMAN9095]

@@Kaceydotme TRIGGERED

[@Wheagg]

@@Kaceydotme Well then it would have to work with emulation, something it doesn't do currently. That said, if someone with a mild amount of determination comes along that statement will be falsified.

[@Kiirabu197]

As a German I can only say: "Alter, wie geil ist das denn?!"

[@Kabodanki]

No...no... even if the train, housing, and shower cost 0 shekel, I won't get on that train.

[@dranoelr]

@@Kabodanki WTF?

[@primalaspid7197]

da kann ich nur zustimmen!

[@smt4090]

gibbashbagerbadomabee

[@saturn9129]

Mann,wenn ich nur einen Gameboy hätte.

[@stapuft]

this man has stared into the logic analyzer, AND LO HAS IT STARED BACK AT HIM!

[@sovograf]

In Russia logic anallyzes you

[@asjidkalam]

@@sovograf *sovient anthem intensifies*

[@dampswan2007]

This is super impressive! It’s fun how people are still working on gameboys and improving them.

[@MrAlpiz]

Since I was a kid, I've dreamed about playing Gameboy games online. I am so happy right now! Thanks for the amazing content, I am looking forward to seeing other games played online, especially Pokemon, it would be great if I can trade my Pokemons online!

[@SilverdarkShine]

Next project: Build a tetris clone with React, so you can battle someone who owns a Gameboy :D

[@RaviolistRavioli]

Can't wait to see Grand Theft Auto Online be released on this platform

[@lexdoes]

Glad to tell you that it actually exists in an official form. kzbin.info/www/bejne/gZu4aHmCgd6Nr9U

[@RaviolistRavioli]

@@lexdoes *Online GTA

[@Redh0und]

@@lexdoes no multiplayer tho

[@JulienNeel]

A great idea, well executed, and really well presented. Wow!

[@urphakeandgey6308]

Kirby & The Amazing Mirror Online would be awesome! If someone took it even further and modded that game into an MMO... I would never stop playing! That was my childhood!

[@michaelepica3564]

I would love to do that if I actually had that game and knew how to lol

[@niko5008]

If you ever THINK about doing the same thing but on Pokemon games, remember to put safety protocols! The game has some vulnerabilities that allow the attacker to brick the victim's save

[@pascl1983]

Ooooh with that link emulation, u could create a pokemon trade for blue/red and next ones...

[@ForboJack]

That would be super cool to see :D

[@coop152]

could even create a program that lets you trade from the game boy games to the gba games, just have it send a lvl 1 pidgey or something if the newer game sends a 3rd gen pokemon

[@adrianpadin1840]

@@coop152 There would have to be some trickiness to this because some stats don't translate between the games (ex. Special in gen 1 vs SpAtk/SpDef in gen 3), and some things like IVs and nature don't exist in the old games, so you would have to either make up these values or have some kind of algorithm for generating them based on existing stats or trainer code or something

[@MrEdes7]

A GTS for pokemon red would be completely useless but fucking cool.

[@thetechconspiracy2]

@@adrianpadin1840 I believe there are algorithms to convert IVs to DVs, EVs to Stat. Exp, and vise versa. If not, they would be very simple to make (little more than simple multiplication and division). The Special stats simply need a lookup table with the base stats of the Pokemon from Gen I/II, and the base stats from Gen III, and that is only if you want to be particularly fancy with how to handle the Special stats: when going from Gen I/II to Gen III, simply apply the Special EVs to whichever Special stat is higher in the base stats. If you wanted to take a more basic approach, and aren't concerned about making the Pokemon illegal (for instance, you plan to keep it in Gen III and not transfer it up to newer games), you should be able to just set both Special EVs with the Special Stat Exp. from the Gen I/II game, not worrying about exceeding the maximum threshold, as that is only verified when trying to transfer the Pokemon to later generations (I think). Only concern would be trying to store the personality value for gender, nature, characteristic, etc. You might be able to encode the data into the catch rate/held item spot, but you only have 8 bits to work with, while the personality value is 32 bits. This would prevent the Pokemon from working in Gen II properly, as if the held item is taken or changed it would destroy the Gen III metadata. You might be able to do some trickery with encoding the values into the DVs, using even/odd numbers (DVs are about twice as large as IVs, so the change wouldn't be that noticeable) to get an extra 4 bits to play with (one for each stat bar HP, which is stored differently). If the Gen III player tries to send a Hoenn Pokemon, the program could simply abort the trade, and cause the systems to report an error. The PC client would then clarify what happened. Although, for any of this to happen, a GBA to USB link cable would need to be made, as the link protocol is different between GB and GBA.

[@louieaaa3818]

This is amazing! I personally don't have a Game Boy to test this with, but I can tell that you've put a lot of time and effort into this. The UI is so clean and beautiful too! Nice work! All that's left now is for someone to create an emulator plugin to connect to your server for us people who never had a physical Game Boy because we're too young 😅

[@gamingnubs7628]

This video is higher in quality than 67% of videos on this platform! Subbed!

[@AlanDSi]

Same

[@t0biascze644]

*This video is higher in quality than 99.999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of videos on this platform! Subbed! fixed it for you :)

I can't seem to find the instructions for making my own adapter on the github? Link please :)

[@stacksmashing]

I need to take some pictures and create some diagrams, but basically: just hook up a level-shifter to the Pico as shown in the picture :) I hope to find the time to add it tomorrow

@@stacksmashing Thanks man :)

[@user-yk1cw8im4h]

hi david didn’t expect to see you here 😆

@@user-yk1cw8im4h I'm everywhere :D

[@hansdietrich83]

David??? Last time I heard of you was when you were when you worked at FliteTest! You have truly been an inspiration, you always built the craziest planes

[@stevenbmeza]

This man is a genius. I recently got tetrisZ on my ti-84 and now I think I might just get an actual gameboy with the game to play this with Friends.

[@moroni8299]

someone made a gameboy emulator for ti84

[@devhonk1722]

man... Imagine using the serial jack like the link cable in his video I own an FX-CG50 and the devs of the SDK i'm using will implement USB, so i could do the same for my calculator.

[@kezzyhko]

This is just awesome. I'm really amazed by how well it came out. Especially how you learned react just for this project and say like it is not a big deal

[@o0julek0o]

Once you get the Pokémon trade one going, I’ll be ordering an adapter. :)

[@RasAnnunaki]

This is truly brilliant. Beautiful development. Thank you so much.

[@GreySharr]

This is really an amazing video, short yet very informative. Great idea !

[@rychentech]

You are a Genius this is amazing and I know you have the power inside you to make gba pokemon multiplayer trading online possible with a gba like this please do it millions are waiting and this video needs deserves more recognition / views i didnt even know about this

[@sanchopanza9907]

Absolutely insane, this is the best kind of content. From the idea to the development to the video, that was perfect on every levels. Cheers!

[@Airyz]

Awesome video! I would love to have seen a more in depth look at the communication protocols. Don't be afraid to get into the nitty gritty technical details!

[@TheOtherQuintin]

This is amazing! thank you. I've already preordered. And upvoted this.

[@vince5260]

I know you’ve heard this several times but I need to add to it: this is INCREDIBLE! I appreciate that your curiosity lead you to creating this!

[@turtius]

damn i cant try this as i don't have friends

[@megamanx466]

Well maybe the website can help or at least a social site could. 😅

[@simoneorlando2496]

A job as always out of the ordinary and really interesting! Congratulations Thomas, every video is a pearl!

[@stacksmashing]

Thanks so much! Glad you like it!

[@adamboy7777]

That's awesome. Next we can have Pokemon gen 1 wonder trade maybe?

[@nuclearbeeberman]

this is sooo awesome... I hope we will see more games that can use this adapter and i hope there is a community building around this, that you can somehow find players online :)

[@gadgetmadlad6691]

Dude you are a genius. Seriously bravo 👏

[@MuffinSauce600]

this is actually an amazing idea, it also means that players can use different hardware to play together. It would be amazing if a community started doing tournaments like this. there's still some improvements that would be done, like a live lobby, a automated lobby that waits 2 minutes for players, once those 2 mins are over the available players compete ( could also restrain to 5 players to make that process faster). I also know that there are still very competitive Tetris communities on NES and up, would be great if this got their eyes, specially with projects like consolizer (turns a gba into a hdmi console controlable via snes controller).

[@eyluismi168]

This is awesome! Thanks for the video!! :D

[@healthy5659]

Absolutely amazing. Wonderful job.

[@NavinF]

You gotta gold plate those PCB edge connectors for the next version. HASL will tarnish real fast

[@rfcdgaf]

Wow this is amazing, I literally just searched gameboy link and never in my 1993 kid mind could've imagined something like this!!

[@IoIxD]

Could a general client be made for this so that games like Pokemon can be played over the network?

[@trashandchaos]

You would definitely have to reverse engineer each game individually but I would imagine it's possible for most games with link cable functionality.

[@IoIxD]

DrOctapu Could you not just have a program that sends data from one gameboy to another over the network? Why would one have to reverse engineer more then what already has?

[@notechchannel8786]

@@IoIxD because the link portion of the gameboy is is more or less just a fifo, there are no common protocols for the data. this is implemented by each game itself, so you need to reverse engineer each game individually to implement the protocol...

[@somethingcoolgoeshere]

This is amazing!!! Imagine a little usb looking device you can plug into your old gameboy and play online with strangers or friends

[@zwingler]

This video is hitting the algorithm, it will get traction now pretty sure.

[@marwinthedja5450]

He deserves it. Great idea and absolutely beautiful execution!

[@Rolfke]

Your ideas are awesome, dude. And your video's are so nicely executed. Thanks for sharing!

[@pinksheep752]

tetris 99 but with the og tetris

[@thegamingcouch6865]

Im really surprised why this hasn't blown up over the internet. Ive bought 2. look forward to testing it out

[@BenjaminEggerstedt]

Mega cool!

[@coolduder1001]

YES! someone did it. I had this idea like 3 years ago after I saw someone interfacing through the link port. Now we just need to figure out how to do pokemon trading over the internet. Next make it so that a server can talk to and store other user's gameboys. Thanks for making it simple to use too. I know nothing when it comes to actually useful code, so it's nice to see this finally happen.

[@PatThePerson]

“Meeting with friends in person Isn’t an option” Like most of us. Due to a pandemic called no one has any. 😂

[@ganzsichertobi]

I literally missed this one, and only saw it because of your recent air tag upload... Great Video!

[@tolstoj9348]

wait.... this is brilliant! My vision is to have a Gameboy that can connect via HDMI to any screen. The link cable would be the wrong approach, I guess. Does anyone know of such a thing? Maybe a cartridge into which you connect the HDMI as well as the game. Something like a game genie.

[@ks4423]

I know they have game boy color hdmi mod kits so they probably have one for the original too

[@skFIFTY]

i rarely comments video but wow you just create an online mod for a 1989 gameboy thats the most brilliant thing ive seen on youtube by far !!

[@LetsRocka]

This is craftmanship. Congratulations. Superb project, results, video, and all.

[@nensondubois]

The GB is has a very simple I/O without error checking (good luck with 16 players in Faceball lol), and game designers really did what they needed.

[@Evercade_Effect]

I was totally geeing out over this! Very cool stuff man! Keep the fun geeky videos coming.

[@pinkguy8205]

I've wanted to play around with hardware for a long time and this seems like a good first project. I ordered the adapter kit and everything else just a moment ago. Thanks for making and sharing this! Have a nice day! : )

[@c64customs]

Just amazing, adapter ordered immediately, this really rocks!

[@tartas1995]

Ordered 2 because I want to support you and your content (and I believe it to be a great starting point for a pokemon related project that i wanted to make for a very long time)

[@stacksmashing]

Thanks a lot :)

[@amateusz2137]

This is just great. No more words needed. I’m really surprised by the approach i.e. to implement a host. I only figured any remote pass-through multiplayer would be impossible due to latency. It turns out “maybe it is possible”, if implemented a game’s specific protocol.

[@TheOisannNetwork]

Just got my two boards! Thanks! I can't wait to play around with them!

[@raphango]

Really awesome! Congratulations! God bless you! 😄

[@marioc1380]

Your my Hero bro! Wish you came up with this before I gave up my classic game boy system.

[@Wheagg]

I thought you would just create a way to use the link cable for any game online, but I instead saw a demake of Tetris 99. Good stuff.

[@henryatkinson1479]

Very cool work! I'll certainly be picking up one of these boards.

[@coderkind]

Absolutely amazing! Fantastic effort; will buy the adapter when it’s for sale for sure.

[@RobinsonTechnologies]

As the biggest GB Tetris fan in the known universe, I love this

[@sethbessinger2025]

I’ve been wanting this since I was a kid! Nintendo could’ve made software utilizing this on the PC, or the GameCube using the GBA/GCN Link Cable.

[@plueschAMAZONE]

This amount of work and love to engeneering, is just amazing. Keep it on!

[@eduardorg1125]

This is very amazing and hard to believe at the same time, the hacking community surprises me more and more, good job buddy!

[@guillermogil3391]

This is unique, spectacular and so ground breaking. Love it so much!

[@ocphantom]

I ordered this before the video ended. I’m super sold.

[@bartsneezin]

If trading and battling using this adapter got added to Pokemon gens 1,2 and 3, every single pokemon generation would be able to do wifi battles and wifi trades (yes DS games still work, there is an up and running wifi server made by fans you can connect to)

[@martincito2004]

I had this idea too some weeks ago! The only difference is that I don't do any electronics but just programming, so I didn't know where to start. Cool video!

[@Gameboy-Unboxings]

Is this dude a genius? Like wtf. 😮 Also, how does this not have more views?

[@AnandPrabhuB]

I discovered your channel today. You are amazing!

[@Gold_Yoshi]

Every time I have a good idea, I don't get sad when someone does it first. I get happy that someone actually did it!

[@TheBaxes]

This would be perfect for playing Kirby and the amazing mirror. Bonus points if we can train an AI with this

[@VerdASMR]

Yes! Please go into detail about how you reverse engineered the protocol from tetris. I have a project in mind to build a driver for a certain old device, but never done any hardware reverse engineering. I would love love love that. Huge fan of the channel keep it up 👏

[@falxie_]

I didn't even know that WebUSB existed, that's super sick

[@hiruma01]

It's incredible, I was just wondering two weeks ago why nobody created an interface to the link cable for the internet (was thinking of four swords) and boom here you are.

[@expented]

Love the things you're doing! What a way to make the Gameboy RGB relevant again! :)

[@skycloud4802]

This is a ridiculously good idea! Love it.

[@pablogs7799]

Always great to see your projects!

[@coop_0128]

This is so cool. I’m glad people like you exist to make this stuff

[@djflugel79]

Zelda: Four Swords Adventures, F-1 Race, Pokemon, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, Shining Soul II and so much more amazing experiences are getting on the horizon :-D

[@Smartady92]

People like you are the reason why I became a developer. I really love your videos!

[@laka0013]

Wow, you're very talented! And good at explaining!

[@homeoftheinepttulpagamer]

My interal dialogue: Me1: Yeah, you might not need drivers to run it if you use WebUSB but then you need an internet connection Me2:But.. You are playing against people on the internet. So you need the internet. Me1:.... You have been promoted to Me1

[@HitCtrlAltDel84]

Amazing work! Funny how you can adapt the Tetris protocol to be many-player because it is so simple.

[@samucam7589]

That's really great! Good work! I quote the guy who wrote about pokemon trading online, it would be amazing!

[@andrew8293]

This is incredible! Thanks for making a hardware kit. If I have the time I'll check it out. Maybe if you can make this work for more games (especially Pokemon and GBA games like Mario Kart) it would be the perfect way to have netplay but with the real Hardware!

[@thomasnewfield9950]

Excellent work and nice adapter.

[@bluecat52]

Hey just letting you know it's probably a good idea to add a catch for if the user doesn't select a device. I would suggest adding text that says something like "No Device selected :(" and have a reload button for it to try again.

[@ArchinaGM]

The Classic Tetris community might be interested in this. I've already notified some key players in our region though if the platform hold well I may even get in touch with Chrisstoffer To perhaps use as a backup for the European championships if Covid gets in the way again. :)

[@stacksmashing]

Let me know, happy to help. I love classic Tetris :)

[@korvkorv532]

Cool stuff. Hope all of the games with link cable usage can be done in the future (remembering some fun death matches VS a friend in Perfect Dark on the GBC). Never played GB tetris with a link cable; but it's a classic so good choice as well.

[@vyzia]

Man you are so creative! Incredible work.

[@michaeldemers2716]

I hate Tetris but I love all things Gameboy so a big thumbs up. I am really starting to love the Raspberry Pi as well. I have 3 now. The Pi 400, the Pi 4B 8GB in the Vilros keyboard/touchpad hub and a Pi 4B 2GB. Great work. Genius!!!!

[@Diadem37sGarrage]

Hey Stacksmashing could this device be used to link a old GBC Gameshark to a pc to be reflashed? My old 1999 V3.1 Gameshark got corrupted during a save crash and has become more or less unusable unless I can figure out a way to reflash it. Any advice would be greatly appreciated I really hope to hear back from you as I am no where near as brilliant as you are clearly. thx in advance Diadem37.

[@henning256yt]

Great Idea. What about a game independent match making platform? If you just route the data between two gameboys you can make any game online capable! Also fancy homebrew stuff. Oh, and maybe emulators too! Maybe even without a PC if you use an ESP8266/ESP32 or something else that has WiFi. Dude, you opened a door to a world beyond imagination...

[@LeifEricsonYT]

This is incredible. Does the link cable adapter work with GBA games, or only GB games using a GBA link cable? Provided someone wrote the proper code for it, it would be cool to see it work with the GBA Pokemon games. Also, another interesting possibility is writing an AI to play GB Tetris against you. There are so many possibilities when a custom server is involved.

[@piratesofthedeepweb9873]

Great work man. That is extremely impressive.

[@burnsy96]

Mad influx of old Gameboy handhelds and copies of Tetris preparing for the epic battle royal!

Good to see you having fun!

[@jengelenm]

This is what i was waiting for! The future of retrogaming for sure!