Hey everyone, it's Colin. How's it goin'?
All of Nintendo's Game Boy handhelds have had high quality backlights retrofitted to 'em in one way or another.
...with the exception of the Game Boy Color.
...That is, until now.
Let's take a look at the most promising option yet.
[♪ Music - Intro ♪]
These are the parts I used to put together what's known as the BennVenn 101 mod.
It adapts the backlit screen from a Game Boy Advance SP AGS-101
to work properly with the Game Boy Color circuitry.
The key piece that does the all work is this custom interface ribbon cable.
It does more than just adapt the connector.
It contains a CPLD chip, which converts the signals to ones the new screen can use.
In addition to the screen and ribbon cable, I also picked up a replacement housing and glass screen cover.
These are optional, but I'd recommend 'em,
as I ended up doing a lot of modding to the housing as part of installation.
I already disassembled my donor console, so I directed my attention to the front panel.
The parts that hold the original screen and position need to be removed
because they keep the new one from fitting properly.
I used a pair of flush cutters to trim away as much as I could
and they did a surprisingly good job and saved a ton of time.
It wasn't perfect though, so I went back with a craft knife to get things as flush as possible.
Saying the new screen is a tight fit is an understatement.
You'll see what I mean in a few minutes.
To add just a little more room, I removed the metal shield from the rear housing,
and trimmed off these tabs.
Every bit helps.
I grabbed the Game Boy's circuit board next.
There are some mods that have to get done to *it* too.
First, the power LED has to go, as there's no space for it anymore.
A bit of desoldering braid, and it came out without too much difficulty.
Next, I grabbed the cutters again and trimmed down the leads
on the cartridge connectors so they were flush with the board.
Yes, space is going to be *that* tight.
I did the same for the volume wheel and link port.
A couple more changes to the board were necessary for the new ribbon cable.
I desoldered and lifted pin 3 on this regulator chip,
then flipped it up.
I soldered a short mod wire to it, then to the capacitor at position C23.
I connected the ribbon cable to the board,
then soldered a wire to the oscillator package
with the other end going to the clock solder pad on the ribbon.
This gives the CPLD a reference, so it can work in sync with the Game Boy.
I opted to test everything before continuing with assembly.
I carefully put the board in the rear housing and installed a pair of batteries.
I connected the new screen to the ribbon cable,
crossed my fingers, and turned it on.
One thing to note is that there's a white border around the screen image, so I opted to mask it off.
I fired up a game, then cut pieces of black electrical tape to size.
If you had access to a vinyl cutter, you can make a custom mask,
which would likely work even better.
I didn't put away the tape just yet.
Because of how tight the components are, I needed to cover some parts to prevent shorts,
like the shield in the rear housing,
as well as the back of the circuit board.
I also put a piece on the front of the board to help keep the ribbon cable in place.
Alright, let's finish it up.
I threw the buttons and membranes back in,
then installed the screen with a loop in the cable to take up the slack.
The adapter ribbon gets folded behind,
then I screwed the board back in to keep it from going anywhere.
Finally, the rear housing got set in place, along with the two screws at the bottom.
When I tested it again, I noticed some noise on the screen.
There's a potentiometer accessible through a hole in the battery compartment,
and I used a small Phillips screwdriver to turn it.
I found that a little turn clockwise got the screen looking clear and bright,
though you may need to experiment with it a bit.
Finally, I cleaned the display one last time,
stuck down the new screen cover,
and it was all done.
And the results look amazing.
The colors are vibrant, and the backlight is nice and bright.
It's in the proper aspect ratio,
though the image is slightly smaller than on the original screen.
But it does one for one pixel mapping without interpolation, so everything looks perfectly sharp.
There's one hardware consideration though, and that it's hard to close the console housing up.
The AGS-101 screen is quite a bit thicker than the original,
and even with all the trimming I did, the back just won't sit flush.
Trying to pull it closed with screws won't work because,
well, the standoffs on the front panel were removed so the screen could fit.
There's also no power switch because the plastic that supports it got cut away too.
Part of this has to do with the thickness of the screen bezel.
On a spare housing, I cut away the bezel completely
and that was enough to get things to close up properly.
But without that bezel, the screen cover has nothing stable to stick to.
I'm sure that if you were sufficiently dedicated, you could shave down the thickness of the bezel enough to make it all work.
But having started to go down that path,
I can tell you it would take a *lot* of time,
and you'd still be left with gluing the top closed, which ultimately limits serviceability.
One more thing to think about with this mod is its cost.
I bought all the parts myself and paid $50 US for the adapter ribbon,
plus another $60 for the screen.
Add in a few bucks for the replacement housing, glass screen cover, and shipping,
and I'm in over $140 on this Game Boy.
And that doesn't include the cost of the donor console.
That's certainly a lot to spend on any console mod,
especially considering how hard it is to get everything to fit.
All of that said though, there's been a lot of demand for a properly backlit Game Boy Color mod,
and this is it.
Yes, it's complex to install and no, it's not perfect,
but it is, quite frankly, the *best* quality image you can get.
It just comes down the fact that, with its price tag,
you gotta pay...
to play.
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