Super GB Booster
Several years back, a few of my friends from Kentucky came down to visit. With them, they brought — among other things — some beer, an Atari Jaguar, and a giant plush crab. It was a weird weekend. At one point we ended up playing SoulCalibur with Dreamcast fishing controllers.
Another highlight to that weekend was what you see above. The Super GB Booster was an unlicensed pass-through cartridge that allowed you to play Game Boy carts on the Nintendo 64. A similar device was also released for the original PlayStation.
Despite being an aggressively unofficial piece of hardware, it worked pretty well. Games ran full-screen with minimal hiccups. If but for one small problem, it would otherwise be an acceptable alternative to the Super Game Boy and the GameCube’s Game Boy Player.
The problem? The Super GB Booster did not output audio.
Well…that’s not entirely accurate.
To clarify, it didn’t output Game Boy sound effects and music. It did play an endless loop of something else, in an attempt to hide the lack of actual sound emulation.
The result has an interesting effect on any game you plug in to it. Below is a simulation of the Super GB Booster experience.
[photo credit: Retro Gaming Life]
August 15th, 2011 at 11:06 am
I have to admit I’m a lot more interested in the Playstation version! How many other unlicensed products out there hook in via serial ports? It’s easy to forget so many game consoles even had serial or expansion ports. The Genesis and Turbo obviously had their CD accessories, but the SNES and NES had ports, too–did anyone ever produce unlicensed accessories that used those?
August 15th, 2011 at 12:00 pm
I *KNOW* I’ve heard of this thing before, I specifically remember how it didn’t have sound emulation so it just played random music… I just can’t recall where I read about it. :(
August 15th, 2011 at 12:44 pm
@Michael Stearns: The SNES had a bunch of “backup” devices, and I think the NES did as well, although it’s only the original 1987 NES that had the serial port (there were a few hardware revisions over the years which removed that, although they still left the snap-on cover there for some strange reason – that was the case on the version that came with the Power Pad for example).
August 15th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
What did you just do? Did you time gameplay footage to the Super GB Booster theme? Did you just make a Super GB Booster AMV?!
August 15th, 2011 at 4:31 pm
Dear god, I played those games so much my brain just filled in the sound effects that that go with them
August 15th, 2011 at 5:02 pm
Fulfilling both the dream and the friends quotient in one post!
Man, Best Friends Tournament of the Century had this playing as one of the rules too, which was hilarious on the Gambol [A] round.
August 15th, 2011 at 6:14 pm
Robosheep: When the Mario Land bit was on I briefly thought “what are you talking about? There are totally sound effects.” until I realized that my MIND WAS FILLING THEM IN ON ITS OWN!
August 15th, 2011 at 10:25 pm
The hottest MIDI dance club beats by Super GB Booster
August 16th, 2011 at 9:33 pm
Thanks for dredging up some horrible memories, Sardius. I may never sleep again. >:(
(just kidding, it was a fantastic experience and I was glad to be a part of it)
(by the way, here’s the original MP3 for your anytime sexy relax listening pleasure: http://bmf.rustedlogic.net/music/ThatSong.mp3)
August 18th, 2011 at 1:06 am
Aww <3 Such fond memories of this song. I swear one of these days I will get someone to cover this one with me. I really want to find one of these someday so I can dance the night away with creepy late night local access TV transvestites.
I love this blog! I really hope you do a feature on Richard Scarry's Busytown when emulated on a Dreamcast, especially since I've been looking to try and recreate that for disbelieving friends and I have no idea what all is required.
February 14th, 2012 at 4:52 am
Oh man that time Ol’ Bitty heard this song.