Overview

This is the easiest guide to DIY a Game Boy flash cartridge, you only need to solder 3 or 4 wires (for 2 or 4 MB flash ROM) and the adapter board to an old cartridge with a compatible 32-pin SOP MASK ROM footprint.

Compatible Cartridges

  • MBC5

    • DMG-A02-01 – PCB Photo – MBC5 + ROM (256/512/1024 KB) + RAM (32KB) + Battery
    • DMG-A06-01 – MBC5 + ROM (256/512/1024 KB) + RAM (8KB) + Battery
    • DMG-A07-01 – MBC5 + ROM (256/512/1024 KB)
  • MBC3

    • DMG-KFDN-10 – PCB Photo – MBC3 + ROM (256/512/1024 KB) + RAM (32KB) + Battery + Timer
    • DMG-KFDN-01 – MBC3 + ROM (256/512/1024 KB) + RAM (32KB) + Battery
    • DMG-KECN-SP – MBC3 + ROM (256/512/1024 KB) + RAM (8KB) + Battery + Timer
  • MBC7

    • DMG-A40-01 – PCB Photo – MBC7 + ROM (256/512/1024 KB) + RAM (512B) + Tilt

There are more cartridges compatible with this adapter board, you only need to check the footprint of cartridge ROM is the same as the adapter board. It is also compatible with other game platforms that use the same ROM pinout and footprint.

This adapter is comptible only with 32 pin SOP parallel ROMs

Adapter Schematics

Download schematics as png image or pdf doc.

Assembling

First one is desolder the read-only ROM on cartridge, do it carefully to avoid damage on cartridge PCB. Normally the ROM is marked as U1 2M/4M/8M -MROM, below the backup battery.

The next step is solder the adapter in place of ROM, I recommend cleaning the remaining solder (with some solder flux and copper wire) before solder the adapter.

And the final step is solder the 3 or 4 wires of signals: RESET (/RST on MBC5), RW (/WR on MBC5), A20 and A21 (*You only need to solder address 21 [A21] if you have a 4MB ROM adapter). You can solder the wires directly on the MBC5 or on a via/trace that carry any of these signals.

Programming Setup

The first time when you program your cartridge, you will need first erase the memory clicking the Erase Flash button.

After this you can program the cartridge like others: MBC AUTO… FLASH/ROM size… RAM size…

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