3 hours ago
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I complained that there weren’t enough buttons in cars anymore, but this isn’t exactly what I meant. A YouTube tinkerer named John Sutley showed us how he got the original 1989 Game Boy in his car functioning as a speedometer. It’s a bonafide, “why not?” kind of hacking project, and it’s incredibly poignant at a time when screens in the car are becoming bigger and more distracting with every generation.
I didn’t have time to watch the 55-minute video because so much goes over my head, but it covers the process from infancy to execution. John spends most of the video walking through his process and explaining how he decided to connect the car to the Game Boy. His initial goal was to get the Game Boy to read the vehicle’s CAN bus system and show the mileage per hour on the 160×144-pixel dot-matrix display. John had to design custom circuit boards for this project to bridge the CAN system and the Game Boy. The bridging process took months, but John figured out a form factor to insert into the Game Boy’s cartridge slot and then run a cable that connects to the car’s internal computer.
The final product is extraordinarily unpolished. It looks like a hackneyed device bursting out of its seams with the circuit board entirely exposed. It won’t replace those Android Auto/CarPlay external displays you can buy for your car but will ensure some “geek” cred.
While driving, John could barely take a video of the glare-ridden pea-green Game Boy screen. So he takes the circuit-board monster he created from the original Game Boy and tries it in a late 90s model Game Boy Pocket instead. Its sharper black and white screen can display the mileage-per-hour a little better, giving John the credence he needs after concocting the “world’s worst digital dash.”
“The whole notion of using your Game Boy as your car’s digital dash is ridiculous,” John admits in his YouTube video. I’m glad he sees it for what it is. While the final product isn’t exactly practical to drive around with, the point is that this kind of hackery can be done.
