JuiceCBean
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Dear All,

     I've recently attempted to assemble an Arduinoboy.  I'm at the point of testing it.  I have a gameboy link cable that when stripped has a white, brown, black, blue, orange, and green cables.  I'm positive that the brown is power, and the blue is ground because I'm able to power the Arduinoboy with my gameboy.  I'm having problem deciding which is the clock, data in, and data out.  I've tried measuring resistances, but I measure near zero resistance for multiple pins on some wires.  Does that mean the cable is bad?  I've tried to look at various posts including

Trash80's original schematic:
http://trash80.com/arduinoboy/arduinobo … _1_1_0.png

2PLAYER's graphic:
http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnj82q0DGQ1qh1e42.png

and the LSDJ wikia's article:
http://littlesounddj.wikia.com/wiki/PC_ … _Interface

None of the pin setups seem to match the cable I have.  Any and all advice would be appreciated.  Thank you.

nitro2k01
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Sweeeeeeden

Never trust color coding, except for with official Nintendo cables. Which points are you testing between exactly? I'm guessing the stripped wire on one side, and on the other side?
The connector while not plugged in? If you do this, make sure you're only touching one side of the connector, which may require a harp multimeter probe. (Assuming a DMG plug.)
The underside of the Gameboy motherboard while the cable is plugged in? You can do this, but make sure the Gameboy is turned off.

JuiceCBean
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Sorry about the ambiguity.  I've tried measuring the resistances of each pin on the wire specifically.  From one end of the stripped game boy cable to the pin on the other end.  I'm going by the pin description in Trash80's original schematic.  It's definitely holding up true.  The one on the LSDJ wikia is kinda weird.  It differs from Trash80's schematic.

JuiceCBean
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It's not an official cable either.  It's a cable that splits on one end to have two connectors, one for original DMG and the other for a Gameboy Color.  I'm only able to power it on the Gameboy Color right now.  I've heard that normal DMG cables don't have the power pin (or wire) in them.  I'm thinking about buying a dmg 07 cable off of ebay.  That's what 2PLAYER used and it apparently works for him.

kitsch
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matt's mind

the dmg-04 and dmg-07 accessories both have the 5V pin wired

nitro2k01
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Sweeeeeeden

No, DMG.04 doesn't. That's why you need to do the pin swap mod on those.

JuiceCBean
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nitro2k01 wrote:

No, DMG.04 doesn't. That's why you need to do the pin swap mod on those.


Puh, puh, puh pin swap mod?  What is this wizardry you speak of?

nitro2k01
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Sweeeeeeden

There used to be images here, but apparently Tim didn't renew his Flickr Pro membership, so you can't see the images until he does. (Flickr has a limit on how many imags and sets you can have without a Pro membership.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/trash80/se … 324137185/

nickmaynard
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rochester, ny

when i made mine, i tried to follow color guides but that didn't work at all. at one point, i ended up just trying random combinations until they worked. can you harm anything by doing that?

Telerophon
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Austin, Texas

There's a decent-ish pinout on the GBDev wiki, if I correctly recall.

For a keyboard cable, you need to have the four pins connect to Serial In, Clock, +5V, and GND. You may not even need serial out, actually…

For an Arduinoboy, I think it's S-IN, S-OUT, +5V, and GND, right? I haven't built one of those yet, personally…

JuiceCBean
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nitro2k01 wrote:

There used to be images here, but apparently Tim didn't renew his Flickr Pro membership, so you can't see the images until he does. (Flickr has a limit on how many imags and sets you can have without a Pro membership.)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/trash80/se … 324137185/


Well.  This seems like it would be practical, but wouldn't I still need the ground pin?  It says to move it to the power pin right?  My goal is to be able to connect a DMG to my DAW via arduinoboy.  Right now I'm running on a gameboy color.  I'm using a cable that split on one side to have both DMG and Color connectors.

JuiceCBean
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nickmaynard wrote:

when i made mine, i tried to follow color guides but that didn't work at all. at one point, i ended up just trying random combinations until they worked. can you harm anything by doing that?

I've sort of done that to find out where the power and ground are.  I hope you can't harm anything in doing that.  The problem is, I don't know how the arduinoboy should behave when it's connected properly lol.  All I know is that when I connect it right now, I get power.  When it's in a certain mode, and I hit a keyboard key, the led's flicker a certain way, but I get no sound.  Sorry for abusing the commas right then.

JuiceCBean
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Telerophon wrote:

There's a decent-ish pinout on the GBDev wiki, if I correctly recall.

For a keyboard cable, you need to have the four pins connect to Serial In, Clock, +5V, and GND. You may not even need serial out, actually…

For an Arduinoboy, I think it's S-IN, S-OUT, +5V, and GND, right? I haven't built one of those yet, personally…

I eventually want to power the Arduinoboy with a DMG and connect it to my DAW.  So I'll need all the pins right?  +5V, GND, S-IN, S-OUT, and CLK?

Telerophon
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Austin, Texas

I don't think CLK is the same thing as MIDI Clock in this situation, it's more the clock speed for synchronizing CPU cycles…

› Show Spoiler

nitro2k01
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Sweeeeeeden
JuiceCBean wrote:

This seems like it would be practical, but wouldn't I still need the ground pin?  It says to move it to the power pin right?

The trick is to use the cable shield as ground, since the connector shield is connected to ground inside the Gameboy. Alternatively, you could move and reuse the SOUT pin (the one  that sends data from the Gameboy) as +5V if you don't need that functionality (sending MIDI from the Gameboy.) Without some kind of ground connection, the circuit won't work.

JuiceCBean
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Telerophon wrote:

I don't think CLK is the same thing as MIDI Clock in this situation, it's more the clock speed for synchronizing CPU cycles…

› Show Spoiler

I'm sure you're right about that.  I'm a total noob when it comes to MIDI or gameboy mods.  All I know is that in Trash80's schematic, he connects all but one pin (pin 4 I believe) on the DMG cable.  I'm assuming that the clock is connected.  Please correct me if I'm wrong.