Bare-Metal Micro

Measure twice, cut once

After several hours of check and rechecking my PCB design, I decided that it was “good enough.” It was a good idea for me to spend a little bit of extra time on the review because I did find a few issues. I get very impatient with PCB designs because I want to order the boards as soon as possible so I can start playing with them. Someday, I would like to be able to do manual routing, but that day is not today. I used an auto router and, while it isn’t pretty, it passes all the design rule checks.

What does it do?

The Game Boy Flash Cartridge PCB is a simple design that has three main features:

1. Re-programmable memory to store Game Boy games that can be played on the Game Boy.
2. Pin header that allows an external device to connect to the cartridge connector pins.
3. Jumpers that allow the selection of one of up-to sixteen games stored in memory.

By itself, the PCB can only be used to play games that are 32KB in size. This is the size that does not require any type of memory mapping. The game selection jumpers will allow me to start testing support for memory mapping with an external microcontroller. Memory mapping means bigger and better games.

Sneak Peak

This is a rendering done by KiCad that shows what the board will look like.

Next Steps

Now for the hard part… I wait for the parts to arrive. After that, I will assemble and test the boards and start playing around with memory mappers.