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by mkarr 3950 days ago
One of the easiest ways to get code running on the GBA is via the multiboot protocol over the link port. This was the primary way I ran code on the GBA circa 2003ish using a link cable spliced into a parallel port plug.

Unfortunately, parallel ports are exceedingly uncommon these days. However, it looks like this can be done easyly enough using something like a Teensy [0] or Arduino [1].

[0] https://github.com/tangrs/usb-gba-multiboot

[1] http://web.archive.org/web/20100815071014/http://blog.evildr...

2 comments

Oh, interesting! For those of you not versed in the intricacies of playground GBA link cable gaming, this protocol was used to link multiple GBAs, where one would have a cartridge and the others would not, and they would receive the game over the link cable. These single-cart multiplayer experiences were almost always very rudimentary, because as Torgo says, you're loading the entire payload in memory.
Definitely works, although you are limited to a very small payload that must be loaded completely into memory.