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The Ultimate Game Boy Talk (33c3)

media.ccc.de

274K subscribers • 55 videos on Hallway • Conference channel

YouTube
  • Recommended by 12 people: 10 on Hacker News and 2 on Lobsters.
  • A classic. People kept recommending it from 2017 to 2026.
  • Presented by Michael Steil

Intermediate. Assumes working knowledge.

241K views9 years ago12 recommendations

Systems programmingHardwareRetro games and consolesCPUs and computer architectureRendering

Michael Steil explains the internal architecture, CPU quirks, and graphics rendering of the Nintendo Game Boy.

media.ccc.de/v/33c3-8029-the_ultimate_game_boy_talk The 8-bit Game Boy was sold between 1989 and 2003, but its architecture more closely resembles machines from the early 1980s, like the Commodore 64 or the NES. This talk attempts to communicate "everything about the Game Boy" to the listener, including its internals and quirks, as well as the tricks that have been used by games and modern demos, reviving once more the spirit of times when programmers counted clock cycles and hardware limitations were seen as a challenge. Michael Steil

Why it's here

12 people recommend this

What people say. Highly recommended as an incredibly comprehensive and clear guide to the Game Boy hardware, often used as a reference for emulator developers.

lorddimwiton Lobsters • Recommends

The Ultimate Game Boy Talk
18View on Lobsters

rtpgon Hacker News • Recommends

On “A list of Game Boy development resources”

The Ultimate Game Boy Talk0 (listed in the page) is one of my favorite talks of all time. If you were to send this talk to someone, with basically just the videe they could likely build a faithful Gameboy clone. It's so dense, easy to understand, and comprehensive. I'll listen to it form time to time and think about all the cool tricks it reveals. Super impressive to have that much knowledge for a system that only had a couple thousand programs ever written for it. 0: link to this video
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jchwon Hacker News • Recommends

On “GameBoy CPU Manual (2013) [pdf]”

…estly I have no idea how to approach audio at all. Nevertheless, it's still quite fun. The LCD timings are a point of curiosity for me. It seems there's still a slight bit of mystery around it, still today. I was inspired to play with emulating Gameboy specifically after an excellent 33c3 talk, The Ultimate Game Boy Talk, which I highly recommend. link to this video (Some day I would like to approach emulation for more platforms, both newer and older, but I feel I still have so much time learn about designing emulators that I haven't bothered with that yet. It's so open ended, and handling things like cycle counting has a lot of different approaches of varying desirability.)…
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msarnoffon Hacker News • Recommends

On “How MOS 6502 Illegal Opcodes Work (2008)”

Michael’s blog is one of my favorites. His “Ultimate Guide” talks are great and I rewatch them at least once a year. Ultimate Guide to the C64: link Ultimate Guide to the Game Boy: link to this video Ultimate Guide to the Apollo Guidance Computer: link
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rtpgon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Game Engine White Papers Commander Keen”

the Gameboy, not the SNES, but this talk is very very good at going in detail about a bunch of internals. The graphics stuff is 29 minutes in but I love the whole video. Very much a high level guide to building a "retro-y" fantasy console for people into that stuff link to this video
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a-109-107on Lobsters • Recommends

The Ultimate Game Boy Talk (33c3)
10View on Lobsters

anyfooon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Why did I spend 1.5 months creating a Gameboy emulator? (2017)”

…m at all, only a 256 byte boot ROM whose sole purpose is to display the Nintendo logo from the cartridge and halt if it does not checksum correctly (for both cartridge integrity and legal reasons). This entertaining 33c3 talk manages to describe the Game Boy hardware practically in its entirety (and with some previously unknown details, actually): link to this video…
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ehaskinson Hacker News • Recommends

On “GameBoy CPU Manual (2013) [pdf]”

…udio, etc.), process any external changes (button presses, serial data), and emulate the next CPU instruction (basically a big switch). I recommend "The Ultimate Gameboy Talk (33c3)" 0, for an overview of the Gameboy and it's internal peripherals. There are various test ROMs available that you can use to verify the basic functionality. 12 0. link to this video 1. link 2. link…
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Kipterson Hacker News • Recommends

On “Making a Game Boy Game in 2017”

For anyone interest, I recommend watching "The Ultimate Game Boy Talk" 0 from 33c3, lots of interesting details about how a Game Boy works, including the PPU 0: link to this video
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eliassonon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Emulating the Original Gameboy’s CPU”

Anyone interested in how the Game Boy works should watch "The Ultimate Game Boy Talk" by Michael Steil. link to this video
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TheAceOfHeartson Hacker News • Recommends

On “Nintendo has reportedly suffered a significant legacy console leak”

…structure, full of hundreds of files; I guess I was expecting things to be a bit more structured. The source is more readable and approachable than I expected, although I've only poked around in some of the more obvious places and definitions. I'd recommend watching The Ultimate Game Boy Talk 1 before trying to dive into any code. 0 link 1 link to this video…
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kaoDon Hacker News • Recommends

On “Choosing tools for Game Boy development”

It's actually Z80-ish with some features missing and some new ones included. It's a Sharp LR35902 SoC with an SM83 core (not sure if it has been used in non-GB SoCs). I can recommend The Ultimate Gameboy Talk for details on it (and much more). link to this video EDIT: I had the SoC and the core names the wrong way around. Thanks svendahlstrand.
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hadlockon Hacker News • Recommends

On “RyujinX – Open Source Nintendo Switch Emulator”

This is a good place to start. Named "the ultimate game boy talk" dives into the CPU used, the instruction set(s) used by the CPU, how the video instruction sets work(ed) etc. The game boy from 1989 is a pretty simple device to start learning from. From there you can look at how various people emulated the system. link to this video
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chrsigon Hacker News • Mentions

On “Gameboy Doctor: debug and fix your gameboy emulator”

…any HNer has other good resources describing it, I'd be thrilled. It's been a couple years since I've hacked on my own emulator, and I got through implementing quite a bit of the behavior. As I recall, I was able to get serial output from the test roms, which was pretty cool. I put it down after getting frustrated trying to render the screen. 0 link to this video 1 link 2 link…
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