Gaming Hacking Homebrew Oldies The case of the "haunted" pokemon blue cartridge

[DeScruff]

im still amazed how broken gen 1-2 is cant think of another game series with so many glitches

And yes "running" is a good word for the status of the blue cartridge theres still something wrong but its playable
for instance if i buy a stack of 99 pokeballs or get over 99 with a item normally it should make another stack of that item but
in this case everything over 99 will be thrown away and then if you exit the marketmenu (after buying something in stack of 99) you would get stuck in front of the market guy and sometimes it let u go 1-2 tiles and then it crashes (while moving 1-2 tiles the map pointer would get corrupted but just my theory at the moment)

i got another question for you since you got more experience with reflowing and gb cards in general
i have a gold edition card in very bad shape (corrosion,black spots maybe data rot and a butchered battery change)
wich wont boot behind the nintendo logo is there any chance to revive? i tried a reflow yesterday with no luck
i looked at the pcb and it looked like some traces where corroded do you have any idea? or is it a case for the rubbish bin?

Sorry for the late reply. GBAtemp really is a site I visit very infrequently, and mostly lurk.
XD Yeah Gamefreak were never really great programers from what I can tell. Though I think Pokemon's popularity the biggest reason why do many glitches have been found and documented. Nobody is gonna deep dive into 'Revelations: The Demon Slayer' and document everything like Pokemon.

Anyways, depending on how many traces are broken, one could fix it with enough patience and some 30 AWG, or magnet wire.
That would likely be your best bet. depending on how bad it is? Ive repaired a Wario Land 3 that had a fair number of broken traces, and the clear cart shows that off, and I think it looks kinda cool.

Board swap is kinda outa the question sadly.
For starters I have a feeling you wouldn't have the equipment, nor experience.
As far as I am aware, there are no good games to use as a donor board for Pokemon G/S. - Pokemon G/S/C has a very unique board with only one other game ("Trade & Battle Card Hero") being an MBC3 + RTC + 44 pin ROM game.
And because GB/GBC game PCBs come in a lot of variety of configs, there haven't been a lot of people making custom replacement PCBs.

I wouldn't throw it out if you can't fix it (I'm sure someone is always looking to salvage parts from OG carts - Specially shells)

 

[rantex92]

Sorry for the late reply. GBAtemp really is a site I visit very infrequently, and mostly lurk.
XD Yeah Gamefreak were never really great programers from what I can tell. Though I think Pokemon's popularity the biggest reason why do many glitches have been found and documented. Nobody is gonna deep dive into 'Revelations: The Demon Slayer' and document everything like Pokemon.

Anyways, depending on how many traces are broken, one could fix it with enough patience and some 30 AWG, or magnet wire.
That would likely be your best bet. depending on how bad it is? Ive repaired a Wario Land 3 that had a fair number of broken traces, and the clear cart shows that off, and I think it looks kinda cool.

Board swap is kinda outa the question sadly.
For starters I have a feeling you wouldn't have the equipment, nor experience.
As far as I am aware, there are no good games to use as a donor board for Pokemon G/S. - Pokemon G/S/C has a very unique board with only one other game ("Trade & Battle Card Hero") being an MBC3 + RTC + 44 pin ROM game.
And because GB/GBC game PCBs come in a lot of variety of configs, there haven't been a lot of people making custom replacement PCBs.

I wouldn't throw it out if you can't fix it (I'm sure someone is always looking to salvage parts from OG carts - Specially shells)

Thats nothing to be sorry about were all human
and thats what i call coincidence i ordered 30 awg and 36 awg enameled already (need those to chip a ps2 slim i know its obsolete with fmcb and funtuna but i do it just for the fun)

and here is a picture of that gold card i knew very bad conditions (looks like someone already messed with the card probably the guy from our local pawnshop)
my guess traces 11 through 18 are dead (they were corroded i cleanend it with isopropyl)
and obvious the rom chip needs to be reflowed properly

and i got a question : when im replacing the bad traces can i use the holes as solder points?or should i try solder it right to the chip?

EDIT : Sorry for the bad picture quality gbatemp wouldn let me upload it in native resolution




View attachment 20211114_15422222.jpg

 

[DeScruff]

Thats nothing to be sorry about were all human
and thats what i call coincidence i ordered 30 awg and 36 awg enameled already (need those to chip a ps2 slim i know its obsolete with fmcb and funtuna but i do it just for the fun)

and here is a picture of that gold card i knew very bad conditions (looks like someone already messed with the card probably the guy from our local pawnshop)
my guess traces 11 through 18 are dead (they were corroded i cleanend it with isopropyl)
and obvious the rom chip needs to be reflowed properly

and i got a question : when im replacing the bad traces can i use the holes as solder points?or should i try solder it right to the chip?

EDIT : Sorry for the bad picture quality gbatemp wouldn let me upload it in native resolution




View attachment 284820

If you have a multimeter check continuity to see if a trace is bad or not. I'd recommend watching a few videos on Youtube of people doing trace repair to get an idea of good methods, and its up to your judgement the best method.

 

[HK-51]

Interesting story! Thanks for sharing that.

Arbitrary code execution is possible on 1 Gen Pokemon. Like in fully controlling the GB

Spoiler: Full ACE

It is worth watching for anybody not knowing it the video. I've no idea if that video should be called TAS, hacking or art. Likely all of them.

It could be an unlucky coincidence that the cartridge failed that moment. As far as I know, the (MASK) ROM chips are not electronically rewritable in any way. My first guess would as well have been bad save corruption that should be gone after removing the battery for some time (normally seconds are enough, but in this case I would have waited some minutes to be sure). Dumping the ROM from that cart sounds like a good idea. A simple md5sum comparison will show if it is corrupted (and a test in an emulator to see if the same nonsense happens would be nice as well)



What do you consider to be special equipment? Ironically the answer to dumping a GB(C) ROM with Nintendo devices only is ACE in Pokemon 1 generation:
https://github.com/FIX94/gameboy-audio-dumper
You will need:

• A Pokemon Yellow cart (English or German) to exploit
• A GameCube with Gameboy Player and SD2SP2/SD-Gecko as well as a way of starting Swiss and subsequently GBI
• A Game Boy Color
• Computer with audio line in and cable to connect the GBC

---or ---

• GBC flashcart to execute the audio dumper directly
• Computer with audio line in and cable to connect the GBC

TAS is when they start making inhuman moves and plays, like literally walking out of the screen and into the audience. Was so infuriating how many "speedrunners" cheat and label TAS as a legitimate run that I stopped giving a shit about the niche entirely and they single handedly killed the fad because fuck it, why "git gud bro" when some troon with a bot is going to beat the entirety of the game before it was even a concept in the lead developer's mind while crying wolf and banning everyone else for no reason. Fuck those mind games.

 

[DrgnMasterKota]

Haha definitely creepy.