I’m really into modifying handheld consoles lately.

Mostly Game Boys, but I’ve wandered into other territory with the PSP and Nintendo Switch. The Game Boy platform has so many iterations though and the amount of aftermarket support for those consoles are incredibly vast.

The first handheld I had as a kid was an indigo Game Boy Advance (GBA for short). I still have it. Then, the Game Boy Advance SP, which I also still have. Next was the Nintendo DS Lite for me (the Zelda edition that, again, I still own) but nothing after that. My next handheld console would arrive in 2019 in the form of the Nintendo Switch. As you may see, there’s a huge gap. That gap was filled with home consoles, like the PS2, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. However, Christmas was good to me in 2019 and the Switch was under the tree for me with a copy of Pokemon Shield. It revived my love for the Pokemon games and eventually my love for handheld gaming. 

In 2020 I was in a retro game shop in my local mall. I found a silver Game Boy Pocket for $40 and had to pick it up. It was clean and I liked the aesthetic. I paired it with a copy of Pokemon Silver for another $40 and was on my merry way. I had some original Game Boy games at home and along with Pokemon Silver, I could go back in time and experience some games that were around before I was even alive. I’d be able to experience the games that started Poke Mania. 

I enjoyed the manufactured nostalgia for some time but eventually just stuck to the Switch for the newer Pokemon entries along with PC gaming for the rest. I got bored with Pokemon Silver’s slow gameplay and only really had one or two other games to play on the Pocket. However, I was learning more and more online about modifying these Game Boy consoles, particularly the Game Boy Advance.

I decided I would install a new IPS display in my GBA along with a clean, new shell. I didn’t have too much of a nostalgic tie to the aesthetics of this Game Boy, so I had no problem changing it up. The shell swap was easy, and the IPS display was also fairly simple. The kit was plug-and-play, with option soldering that I did not do. I had no clue how to solder and no desire to learn at the time. This breathed new life into my GBA and along with an SD-card compatible game cartridge, it lives in my car for whenever I need to kill some time.

In 2021 I decided that I wanted to play the Pokemon games that I’d missed in between the DS and Switch. The last game I owned was Pokemon Pearl, and with the next one being Pokemon Shield, I missed over 10 years of Pokemon games. I had a lot of games to play, but the first step is acquiring the necessary hardware. I needed a 3DS.

I decided to skip the other DS games that I never played due to cost. Pokemon Platinum, along with Black/White and Black 2/White 2, were all $60+ and still are. Unfortunately I cannot justify that kind of money on a game, so I’ll save those for later when I have extra cash or just play them on an emulator. The next generation of games was Generation 5 with Pokemon X/Y on the 3DS. I found a used 2DS XL on eBray and bought that. In hindsight, I would have saved more money and paid extra for an IPS 3DS XL, but no worries. I grabbed a copy of Y, plus a Generation 7 game Pokemon Moon. I’d later acquire Alpha Sapphire, a remake of Generation 3 but released under Generation 7, so the only remaining games on the 3DS were Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon. 

I played Pokemon Y and had a decent amount of fun. I’d wished I had the budget and knowledge at the time to get a better console in the form of that IPS 3DS XL, but whatever. A 2DS was still an authentic experience and I wasn’t that upset. I have yet to play Alpha Sapphire and Moon, but I’ll get to it eventually. Fall 2022 was a great time for games, so I had a ton of new titles to enjoy on new hardware. However, once the thrill of new games subsided, I felt the urge to tinker with the handhelds again. The next console I had in mind was the Game Boy Color.

I never had a GBC as I was a little too young when it was the go-to handheld. I had to find one used online, which I again opted against doing because I try to be mindful about my spending habits (work in progress). However, Christmas 2022 came around and I happened to find two GBC consoles under the tree for me. One pristine, red console from my parents and one used, transparent one from my girlfriend. Perfect – I could keep one in original condition and tinker with the other one. The problem, though, was that the cooler-looking console was also the one in worse condition. The transparent, Mande In Japan GBC was way cooler than the plain red one, but was scratched, dirty, and damaged. The red one was nearly flawless.

I decided to keep the transparent one intact despite its flaws. The aesthetic is awesome and even the quality feels better than the Made In China red one. Next, I had to decided what to install in the console. The options are endless for this console – backlights, IPS displays, LED buttons, metal shells, HDMI output, USB-C batteries with wireless charging, you name it. After some research, I ordered a light grey housing, colored buttons, and the main attraction: a laminated IPS display from FunnyPlaying.This screen, however, required soldering to install. I knew I wanted it, so I had to learn. I placed an order for the parts and a solder iron. 

Once the soldering iron showed up, I decided to get some practice in before the GBC mods arrived. I found that IPS display kit from the GBA and learned how to install the brightness control wires. I figured this would be a good way to practice as it’s just two wires and the soldering seemed pretty simple. It was, and I felt really confident in my ability to get the GBC screen installed with no issues.

Pairing with the new shell and buttons, the IPS display makes the GBC look and feel like a modern device. It’s incredible. The laminated display is great because there’s no gap between the display and the lens, like you’d see in the GBA or GBA SP. The display is touching the glass lens. This particular display allows brightness control, custom Game Boy Color logo colors (below the screen), and retro-inspired scan lines that you can toggle to give off the effect of an original display. The breath of life into this handheld inspired me to pick up Pokemon Silver again and I’m finally almost done with it. Just need to beat Misty and Red and then I’ll be done. 

There are two remaining Game Boys left for me – the original DMG Game Boy and the Game Boy Micro. There are tons of DMGs around and they’re reasonably priced, so I have been in no rush to get one. However, the GBM is elusive and expensive. The console came out in 2005 after the DS had already been released. Why would anyone want a tiny console that only plays GBA games when the DS can do that and more? This little console is hard to find and usually sell for $150+ USD. 

A few weeks ago, I found a GBM on eBay for $100 in “untested” condition. It was in poor condition and clearly damaged, but “untested” doesn’t mean “broken”. I took a chance and figured I could repair it if needed. I won the auction and waited. 

Once the console arrived, I charged it and it turned on right away. Great! Next, I took it apart to clean. The process of getting this little guy apart is nothing like the other Game Boys as it’s much smaller, much more tightly packed, and mine was dirty and damaged. The console has layers of plastic frames to keep all the internals in their place. During the teardown, I managed to rip a ribbon cable out of its latch, breaking the latch cover in the process. Lovely. Despite this, I continued the teardown, cleaned everything, and reassembled. To fix the latch issue, I slipped the ribbon cable in and taped it down wit Kapton tape. This worked, thankfully.

Now the console was functional and clean. The aluminum shell was still scratched and dented and the removable faceplate was scratched, but it was clean and working. Awesome.

Except I noticed a few days later that the shoulder buttons don’t work. Fuck me.

How to fix the shoulder buttons? Clean them or replace them. Not much else to it. And I’d already cleaned them, so now I had to replace. Due to the scarcity of these consoles, the parts market is even more scarce. I found one article on how to replace these switches, along with the fun fact that the GBM shoulder switches are nearly identical to the ones on the DS Lite. Thank goodness. I found them on eBay and ordered some. I figured I would either learn to replace them and be successful, or fail and I’d be in the same boat I was already in with broken shoulder buttons. I had nothing to lose.

The shoulder switches are a nightmare to remove and replace. They are smaller than the opening of a 3.5 headphone jack and have three pins that is needs to make contact with on the PCB along with two prongs on the side that side in holes on the PCB. In total, five contact points with the GBM PCB per switch. I’ve never desoldered anything before so I was quite nervous. I proceeded to go slowly, trying to heat the solder joints just enough and pull gently on the switch. This took over an hour for the first switch, as the joints are mostly underneath the switch and difficult to reach with the tip of the soldering iron. Installing the new switch was much easier, as I just needed to line it up with the holes and contacts. Tested and working. Nice! Halfway there. 

The next switch was much trickier because it sits on a dogleg piece of PCB that is not much wider than the switch itself. This means when you pull on the switch, you risk bending the PCB. On top of the heating of the PCB and switch, there’s seemingly more risk on this switch than the other. However, I had extra experience after doing the other side, so I was not as worried. I was prepared to be patient and get this one done. I was in for a real treat.

After some heating and pulling and heating and pulling and heating and pulling and heating and pulling, the switch started to come loose. Some more heating and pulling later, the switch lifted off the PCB and I desoldered the sides to remove it completely. To my unfortunate surprise, one of the three solder pads under the switch had melted off. FUCK

I panicked. Can you glue a solder pad back on? Can I solder the pad to the PCB? No. Neither. The only way to repar it is to scrape off the solder mask, find the trace of copper that leads to the pad, and solder a jumper wire between the trace and the contact on the switch. Problem is, I’ve never done that before and this PCB is so damn small that I could barely find where the trace is. I nervously took an exacto knife and started lightly scraping. I made it to some exposed copper right next to where the pad broke off. Optimistically, I decided I’d just try to install the switch like normal and hope that the switch contact would just barely touch the copper that I just exposed. I got to work and eventually got the switch on. Tested and working. What a damn miracle.

I reassembled, using the new aluminum housing and battery I’d ordered. I went back in to test it again to make sure everything still worked now that it was back together, but I noticed two issues: The left shoulder button (the one I just fixed) was too snug under the plastic bumper that it was staying pressed, and the start/select buttons are no longer working. 

Having no interest in remounting the switch to the PCB, I filed away at the underside of the plastic bumper so that the switch itself would have more room to rebound. It worked perfectly. Now the issue of the start/select buttons is weird. They’d worked perfectly before, so why are they broken now? No idea. I had the system half-apart and tried testing. One button worked intermittently and one not at all. The cable seems perfectly intact, and the LEDs for battery level are working just fine. Seems like the buttons themselves have failed. I ordered some new ones and they’ll arrive two days from now. Wish me luck.

This adventure of modding handhelds is far from over but it’s been a lot of fun. I’ve learned so much about electronics from doing these projects and it’s been really fun to have a handheld console to carry with me. It’s a fun conversation piece for those who are interested and it’s a nice way to tack on a retro vibe to our ever-changing modern lives.