====== Nintendo Game Boy Color (1998) ======
===== Features =====
* CPU: 8-bit processor similar to Z80 at 8 MHz with two processor modes - Single (4MHz) and Double (8MHz)
* RAM: 32Kb; for carts: 128Kb
* ROM: up to 64MBit for CGB carts; from 256KBit to 16MBit for Game Boy carts
* VRAM: 16Kb
* Display: reflective LCD by Sharp, 160x144 pixels
* Colors: 32768 colors; it supports 10,32, or 56 colors on-screen at once
* Sprites: 40 sprites of either 8x8 or 8x16 [switchable]
* Tiles: 512 on screen making use of the 16K of VRAM
* Sound: 4 Channel FM stereo, single mono speaker but stereo headphones jack
* Controls: 8 directional D-Pad, A, B, Select and Start buttons.
* Communication: Serial port at 512 Kbps (to connect more units or the Game Boy Printer), infrared port (for wireless connection of 2 units)
===== Usage =====
== Controls ==
Game Boy Color games are controlled through a 8-way Directional Pad (D-Pad), first introduced by Nintendo in its Game & Watch series of portable games and then used also in the NES controller, and 2 buttons named A and B. Additional buttons Start and Select are present on the console itself.
===== History and Trivia =====
Released in October 1998 in Japan (in November 1998 abroad), Nintendo Game Boy Color (also referred to as GBC, or more correctly as CGB) is the evolution of the Game Boy consoles. It adds a color screen to a device only slightly larger than the Game Boy Pocket, without affecting too much battery consumption (2AA batteries guarantee around 30 hours of play). It also has double the processor speed, twice as much memory, and an infrared communications port.
The console was released in many different color cases: Grape, Atomic Purple (see through), Dandelion, Berry, Kiwi, Teal. Additionally, there were many special limited editions dedicated to e.g. Pokémon, Hello Kitty, Card Captor Sakura and Sakura Wars.
A major draw of the Game Boy Color is its backward compatibility: that is, a Game Boy Color is able to read older Game Boy cartridges and even play them in a selectable color palette. This backwards compatibility became a major feature, since it allowed the new console to start with a significantly larger library than any of its competitors.
This console is capable of showing up to 56 different colors simultaneously on screen from its palette of 32768, and could add basic four-color shading to games that had been developed for the original Game Boy. It could also give the sprites and backgrounds separate colors, for a total of more than four colors. This is achieved by pressing certain button combinations while the Game Boy logo is displayed on the screen. It is also possible to use a monochromatic color scheme that preserves the original look of the game. The palettes available for use when an original Game Boy game is played on a later Game Boy system are as follows
Combo | Background | Sprite 1 | Sprite 2
- --------------------------------------------------------
Up | Brown | Brown | Brown
Up + A | Red | Green | Blue
Up + B | Dark Brown | Brown | Brown
Down | Red / Blue / Yellow | R / B / Y | R / B / Y
Down + A | Red / Yellow | R / Y | R / Y
Down + B | Yellow | Blue | Green
Left | Blue | Red | Green
Left + A | Dark Blue | Red | Brown
Left + B | Monochrome (*) | Monochrome | Monochrome
Right | Red / Green | R / G | R / G
Right + A | Dark Green (**) | Red | Red
Right + B | Inverted Monochrome | Inverted | Inverted
- --------------------------------------------------------
(*) Original Colors
(**) Default Palette
In addition, most Game Boy games published by Nintendo have a special palette that is enabled when no buttons are pressed. Any game that does not have a special palette will default to the Dark Green (Right + A) palette instead.
The palette change feature, however, resulted in graphic artifacts in certain games: a sprite that was supposed to meld into the background was now colored separately, exposing the trick.
The infrared communications was introduced to allow trading of items and sharing of custom character between two units in games which allow this kind of feature. Anyway, it was exploited only in few games (e.g. Pokémon) and it was dropped in the Game Boy Advance. Game Link Cable is still necessary to play head to head matches.
//(info from Wikipedia, FAQs, etc.)//
===== Links =====
* Marat Fayzullin's Game Boy Page -- http://fms.komkon.org/GameBoy/Tech/Hardware.html
* Steve's Game Boy Page -- http://www.semis.demon.co.uk/Gameboy/Gbmain.htm
* [[wp>Game_Boy_Color]]
===== Other Emulators =====
* no$gmb (GB,GBC,SGB) -- http://nocash.emubase.de/gmb.htm
* Gambatte (GB, GBC) -- http://sourceforge.net/projects/gambatte
* BGB (GB,GBC,SGB) -- http://bgb.bircd.org/
* VisualBoyAdvance (GB,GBC,GBA) -- http://vba.ngemu.com/
* KiGB (GB,GBC,SGB) -- http://kigb.emuunlim.com/
* Mednafen (GB,GBC,GBA) -- http://mednafen.sourceforge.net/
* Hello GameBoy (GB,GBC) [no link]
* GEST (GB,GBC,SGB) -- http://koti.mbnet.fi/gest_emu/
Generated on Sun Jul 19 10:17:28 2009