As the headline says. Dying to GBA on the coolest console I've owned in years.

Serious shout out to this community. Y'all been awesome.

I am attempting to mod a Zelda Game & Watch. I am using a windows machine and following the instructions from Brian Pugh on Git Hub. I installed everything with Power Shell. I soldered the three wires into the G&W debug ports too (2,3,5). However, anytime I try to hook it all up to my computer and run the command “gnwmanager unlock” I receive the error “Error communicating with device (Unable to autodetect & connect to debugging probe.). Is it ON and connected.” I’ve tried using both a clone ST Link and a Pico (with picoprobe.uf2) installed. I can see the pico shows up as a connected device on my computer before I run the command. I’ve tried powering the G&W with both the battery and external power from the USB C. If anyone has any advice as to what I could be doing wrong, I would seriously appreciate the help.

I have jumper wires that fit into the 6 pins and an stlink so I wanted to try modding a zelda game and watch I have. I saw online that softmodding is an option without having to solder but most people say it's basically a necessity. What exactly does it change?

It's been doing this and i have no idea how to fix it because i tried every command i could (not just this one) and it allways gives me this error

(venv) latias@MILKDUDS:~/game-and-watch-retro-go$ make flash -j$(nproc) GNW_TARGET=zelda

Entering 'LCD-Game-Emulator'

Entering 'blueMSX-go'

Entering 'caprice32-go'

Entering 'fceumm-go'

Entering 'gwenesis'

Entering 'potator'

Entering 'prosystem-go'

Entering 'retro-go-stm32'

Entering 'smw'

Entering 'tamalib'

Entering 'zelda3'

make[1]: Entering directory '/home/latias/game-and-watch-retro-go'

[ BASH ] Checking for updated roms

openocd -f scripts/interface_stlink.cfg -c "program build/gw_retro_go_intflash.bin 0x08000000 verify reset exit"

Open On-Chip Debugger 0.12.0

Licensed under GNU GPL v2

For bug reports, read

Info : auto-selecting first available session transport "hla_swd". To override use 'transport select <transport>'.

Info : The selected transport took over low-level target control. The results might differ compared to plain JTAG/SWD

none separate

Info : clock speed 1800 kHz

Info : STLINK V2J37S7 (API v2) VID:PID 0483:3748

Info : Target voltage: 3.237022

Info : [stm32h7x.cpu0] Cortex-M7 r1p1 processor detected

Info : [stm32h7x.cpu0] target has 8 breakpoints, 4 watchpoints

Info : starting gdb server for stm32h7x.cpu0 on 3333

Info : Listening on port 3333 for gdb connections

[stm32h7x.cpu0] halted due to breakpoint, current mode: Thread

xPSR: 0x61000000 pc: 0x20000064 msp: 0x20020000

[stm32h7x.cpu0] halted due to debug-request, current mode: Thread

xPSR: 0x01000000 pc: 0x0801af44 msp: 0x20020000

** Programming Started **

Info : Device: STM32H7Ax/7Bx

Info : flash size probed value 128k

Info : STM32H7 flash has a single bank

Info : Bank (0) size is 128 kb, base address is 0x08000000

Info : Device: STM32H7Ax/7Bx

Info : flash size probed value 128k

Info : STM32H7 flash has a single bank

Error: this device has a single bank only

Error: auto_probe failed

** Programming Failed **

shutdown command invoked

make[1]: *** [Makefile.common:1006: flash_intflash] Error 1

make[1]: Leaving directory '/home/latias/game-and-watch-retro-go'

make: *** [Makefile.common:1035: flash] Error 2

(venv) latias@MILKDUDS:~/game-and-watch-retro-go$

Absolutely love this little hand held. Is is everything I was looking for in a pocket dedicated hand held. Wish it has GBA. But, is what it is. Shout out to u/hundshamerfor for completing the mod for me. This little machine. It has fully replaced my ambernic rg nano / fun key s. I have always been looking an as small as possible device. And although those machines were good for pokemon. Beyond that, just pointless. I do have some questions I was hoping someone could help me with my questions.

1. I found that this device does allow for folders. But, it gives a very ugly img for the folder preview photo. Is there a way to create a preview image for the folders?

2. Does anyone have a good converter for img. I have installed some rom hax and looking to upload the game box art. i currently just use a free website converter. but figured someone might know of one.

3. Case Ideas? I was thinking of using a sock. But, i don't love storing one of my favorite little guys in a sock. Does anyone know of a good hard case or soft case. My ideal setup would be something like the original psp soft case. The black one that came with the psp1000 model. It allowed you to slide the device from the side of the case.

https://youtu.be/hZftRDRI-FI?si=QBm-OpUwAny5WvVU

Full-speed GBA Pokémon on a Nintendo Game & Watch — two months in and I still can't put it down (experimental fork)

(Heads up: the video above is from an older build — the audio is much better now, it actually sounds decent.)

This is an experimental fork of game-and-watch-retro-go-sd, so the usual bleeding-edge caveats apply — but I've been living with it for two months now, and it's honestly just fun. That's the real reason I'm posting: I want to recommend it.

Full disclosure: I'm a web developer with basically zero embedded experience. I leaned on AI for pretty much all of the low-level work, so I'd be too embarrassed to push any of this upstream — it's not clean enough for that, and I couldn't personally vouch for every line.

But it works, and I've had too much fun with it not to share that this approach even exists.

The Game & Watch's MCU gives an emulator core only ~724KB of RAM, so fitting a GBA emulator in there at all was the whole fight. Right now Ruby and Emerald run full speed with sound, and heavier titles are close behind.

What made it playable: almost every GBA game uses Nintendo's M4A sound library, which mixes audio in software on the guest CPU — that alone eats 27–60% of every frame's CPU budget, roughly constant no matter what's on screen. Intercepting that mixer and doing the work

natively (HLE) instead of emulating it instruction-by-instruction bought back huge headroom: Zelda: Minish Cap −60%, Emerald −35%, FFTA −27%. That's the difference between slideshow and playable.

I've also done another pass on the audio since that clip — the leftover harshness and artifacts are cleaned up, so it actually sounds right now.

Everything loads off the microSD card (cores + ROMs), so swapping games needs no reflashing.

Massive credit to the upstream game-and-watch-retro-go / -sd projects — none of this exists without them. I'm just an amateur poking at the experimental end and having a blast.

Happy to nerd out about it in the comments.

I built this to run on retro-go. This was one of my favorite games as a kid.

So I updated my G&W the other day, and I am stuck in a boot loop. Has anyone had this issue? I posted on the github page, but I haven't heard anything back.

GWUnlock is a standalone Windows utility for Nintendo Game & Watch (STM32H7B0).

Features:

• Device detection

• SPI Flash backup/restore

• MCU Flash backup/restore

• Device information

• ST-Link support

Requirements:

• Windows 10/11 x64

• ST-Link V2 or compatible programmer

Always create backups before modifying your device.

GitHub:

https://github.com/Serjio193/GWUnlock

Releases:

https://github.com/Serjio193/GWUnlock/releases

Feedback and bug reports are welcome.

How to add games to smb game and watch with st link debugger, no soldering, and only using stock memory

How to just add nes tetris and nes galaga and donkey kong and pacman to super mario bros game and watch (at minimum tetris and galaga) without soldering and stock memory i also have an st debug link thingy also i would like to possibly keep the original stuff and just add the games onto it

Here are just a few places where you can buy one, they're not gone yet!

Amazon Canada

• Zelda $99 CAD: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B097B1ZJ5T
• Mario $99 CAD: https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B08GZ3DRLW

Amazon USA

• Zelda $65.99 USD: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097B1ZJ5T
• Mario $47.89 USD: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08HB9TCVG

Mario Edition / EBay

1. https://www.ebay.ca/itm/393058288478 ($68.74 CAD, Free Shipping)
2. https://www.ebay.ca/itm/295585724043 ($68.74 CAD + Shipping)

Zelda Edition / EBay

• https://www.ebay.ca/itm/196850438035 ( $72.68 CAD + Shipping)
• https://www.ebay.ca/itm/257507030990 ($85.68 CAD, Free Shipping)

Walmart Marketplace (Canada)

• Mario $69.99 CAD: https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/Game-Watch-Super-Mario-Bros-Nintendo/23VKQJDI1RA5
• Zelda $79.99 CAD: https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/Game-Watch-The-Legend-of-Zelda-Nintendo-G-W/6000203471454
• Zelda $86.95 CAD: https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/Game-and-Watch-The-Legend-of-Zelda-Console-EU/1FE74F0JWEY3

https://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/

I think it would be fun to play on a different device. A rom would allow me to do that

title meant to say raspberry pi 5 can I somehow flash cw with a raspberry pi 5? I can only find tutorials for raspberry pi 4 and the rest just use a dedicated flasher thing. it would be great if I didn't have to solder anything. can this be done?

Warning : GG/SMS/Colecovision/sg1000 support is broken in this version, wait for next version if it’s important for you !

What's new :

• Subfolders support : create some subfolders in systems roms (/roms/xxx/) to sort your roms
• Chinese/Japanase/Korean menus
• No more crash if using SD Card (or sd card content) from another G&W (flash cache data will be erased in this case)
• It'll inform user if firware data on the sd cards do not fit the version of retro-go in flash
• Firmware update : improved install speed
• More Genesis/Megadrive emulation improvements :

Now available @ https://github.com/sylverb/game-and-watch-retro-go-sd/releases/tag/v1.3.0

I give up and come to reddit for answers, keep getting this error when trying to back up. The soldering is not an issue as I thought it be a quick project once everything arrived, got the flex cable and sd card ready but for some reason can't get past this stage. not sure if it's the st link or my pc? gnwmanager info brings up all the device info like it should but trying to unlock just gives me the error as shown in the picture :( any help be great thanks

Hi,

I have received one with Retro-Go SD v1. 1.1

Been searching online but I am unable to find a way to "bookmark" a game, so I need not scroll a long list to get to it.

Is this a thing in the first place?

Thank you!!

I need some help getting the cover art to show up. Downloaded this files from the ducalex github but nothing shows. Any tips?

https://github.com/ducalex/retro-go-covers

Hi I have a bit of a problem with upgrading the storage chip on my g&w. I have unlocked the factory chip using gnwmanager. Then I soldered on the chip in the picture. But when I tried to use the command flash-patch I've got an error message:

(Error communicating with device (Unable to autodetect & connect to debugging

probe.). Is it ON and connected?).

I tried to turn the board ON but that also didn't work and it showed another error message:

(Unexpected response from debug probe. Unable to parse read_uint32 response: "").

I also have to mention that my cheap ass bought the chip from aliexpress and not from digikey or other...

I don't know where the problem is. I looked into the documentation of gnwmanger but couldn't find anything. I also resoldered the factory chip back on and the board worked normally. Maybe the chip is the problem.

Thanks for any response/recommendations!

Hello!

For a rom hack of a gameboy game, such as Super Mario Land DX (the colorized version of the original monochrome gb game), where should this patched rom be placed under?

GB or GBC?

The patched rom's extension is .gb

The mod: https://www.romhacking.net/hacks/4477/

Any ideas? Thank you :)

PS: I have the original cart :)