Pico GameBoy printer

Based on the original webserver for the PI Pico repo: https://github.com/maxnet/pico-webserver

Webserver example that came with TinyUSB slightly modified to run on a Raspberry Pi Pico. Lets the Pico pretend to be a USB Ethernet device. Runs the webinterface at http://192.168.7.1/

Special thanks to Raphael-Boichot, please check this repo: https://github.com/Raphael-Boichot/The-Arduino-SD-Game-Boy-Printer

Schematics

You will need a Raspberry Pi, 1/2 of the game boy link cable and a four-channel 5v to 3.3v level shifter. Connect parts as shown:

This is the example of the ready-to-use device:

As finding which is SIN and SOUT is sometimes tricky as signals are crossed within the serial cable, you can also make your own PCB with a Pi Zero and a GBC/GBA serial socket following the guide here. The PCBs come in two flavors: one simple and small with only one pushbutton for shutter or a larger version featuring a full remote control for Photo!

Simple PCB with a single pushbutton (small)

Full remote control version (large)

Build dependencies

On Debian:

sudo apt install git build-essential cmake gcc-arm-none-eabi

Your Linux distribution does need to provide a recent CMake (3.13+). If not, compile CMake from source first.

On OSX:

brew install cmake doxygen 
brew tap ArmMbed/homebrew-formulae
brew install arm-none-eabi-gcc

• Install the Pi Pico SDK and make sure to add the location to your path.

On Windows:

Windows is not a friendly system to compile the pico sdk. Unless you want to loose your precious time, use the following method:

• Install WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) (Ubuntu is default install) and update it

sudo apt update && sudo apt full-upgrade

• Install the pico SDK by following the "Quick Pico Setup" You can use the installation script written for Raspberry Pi, it works. Your computer may require a boot at this step.
• Continue installation like below.

Build instructions

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/untoxa/pico-gb-printer
cd pico-gb-printer
git submodule update --init
mkdir -p build
cd build
cmake ..
make

Copy the resulting pico_gb_printer.uf2 file to the Pi Pico mass storage device manually. Webserver will be available at http://192.168.7.1/

Developing the Frontend

Frontend code development requires node.js (>=20)

• Navigate to the frontend folder.
• run npm install to install all dependencies
• run npm run dev to start a local dev server on 127.0.0.1:3000. The server also does proxy the /status.json and /download endpoints from a Pico which must be connected to the same machine.
• run npm run build to build the static files (html/css/js). Files will be built to ./fs
• When building the rom file locally, also run ./regen-fsdata.sh