The Game Boy DS Lite was one of Nintendo’s most popular gaming consoles, but unknowingly it has a hidden feature that could make it even more popular. Go through the hardware and firmware of the DS Lite, the [Lost Nintendo History] team discovers that the System-on-Chip (SoC) in the Game Boy DS Lite can output a composite video signal.
The SoC can provide 10-bit digital output operating at 16.7 MHz, but it is disabled early in the startup process by the stock firmware, and therefore personal firmware is required. It still needs to be converted to an analog signal, so a small adapter board with a DAC (digital-to-analog converter) and an op-amp is attached to the bending cable of the upper screen. With a set of buttons on the board, you can choose which screen is displayed on the TV. The adapter card is open source and the Gerbers and schemes are available on GitHub.
The current version of the adapter card eliminates the top screen, but the [Lost Nintendo History] team is considering designing a passage sign to eliminate this disadvantage. The TV-out mod can also be combined with the popular Macro mod, in which the top screen is removed to turn it into a Game Boy Advance. The Nintendo DS has been a popular topic on hacking, and we’ve been dealing with it for over a decade.