Awesome

Gameboy Cartridge Dumper

This is a rom that loads its main loop into ram on the Gameboy, lets you swap cartridges and then will dump the contents of that cartridge via a link cable to a Raspberry Pi listening for the ROM data.

Currently tested using an EMS 64M flashcart and both a Gameboy pocket and Gameboy Color.

Screenshots

TODO

• Build a ROM showing text on the screen using RGBDS
  • Test it works on real hardware
• Copy code to RAM and test running from there works in an emulator
  • Test it works on real hardware
  • Add function to fix JUMP and CALL commands once code is moved to RAM
• Read and display the title from the cartridge header
• Test swapping cartridges works on real hardware
• Test for the Nintendo logo like the boot ROM does to see if a valid cart is plugged in
• Read joypad data
  • Read only what's needed when I need it
• Test serial connection works
• Dump cartridge data over seial port when Start pressed
  • Support basic 32K cartridge
  • Support ROM banking
    • MBC1
    • MBC2
    • MBC3
    • MBC5
  • Support SRAM reading
  • Add support for checking the data was properly recieved
  • Screen display dump progress
    • Add stat check in TX loop, only display if clear. No need to loop-block
  • Option to dump using external clock
    • Would need a re-work of the post-TX delay timer code
• Add other dumping methods
  • View hex on screen
  • QR Code (wildcard)
• Add more of a menu instead of debug tiles
  • Show more cart info
  • Nice dump process bar
  • Menu for dump methods
  • Menu for what to dump (rom/save)
  • Option to boot the cart that's plugged in
    • Works on DMG
    • Works on CGB (need to make cart CGB compatible)

To Build

Get RGBDS (Rednex Game Boy Development System) and run make. The makefile assembles, links and fixes creating a cart-dumper.gb file to use.

To Use

Copy the cart-dumper.gb rom to a flash-cart, run it on a Gameboy, carefully remove the flashcart once it's running, carefully (slowly, sometimes going too fast will reboot the Gameboy) put a new cartridge in and then wait for the cartridge title to be shown on screen.

Once connected to a running listener via the link cable you can press Start on the Gameboy and it will send the cartridge data to the listener.