It's important to note, when installing those, whether your system is 32 or 64 bit. The 64 bit installation takes a few extra steps.

Perhaps I'm being an idiot, but it takes all sorts.

EMS products, like a lot of mystery electronics from Hong Kong, never work the way I would expect them to.

Did you install the driver? The device itself isn't natively USB, it has a chip in it that emulates a COM port. The complete software package should have had you install a funky unsigned driver for the COM port emulator/Smart Card.

Incorrect. You're thinking of the other type of cartridge, which is using a properly signed FTDI driver. The EMS cartridge on the other hand is using a completely proprietary driver which actually exposes a form of mass storage device internally. But that's a detail that doesn't matter much really.

1. Which operating system? It's a bitch to get them working in OS X, and not easy on some versions of windows newer than XP.

2. Did you install the driver? The device itself isn't natively USB, it has a chip in it that emulates a COM port. The complete software package should have had you install a funky unsigned driver for the COM port emulator/Smart Card.

EDIT: I'm pretty sure there are a ton of other threads about this. I'm not insinuating that you didn't search per se, but I think you'll be able to find information on the forum faster than I will at this point.

Nonetheless when I try without the GB it comes up the same...

I was given a Gameboy classic complete with smart card, only when I try to connect it to my laptop it says "no driver software detected". I've mooched around the internet a bit to look for it with little success. I did manage to download some software for burning onto the smart card, but it doesn't detect my driverless GB. Help! Please!! I want to make it go bloop.