Letterpress Workshop

• DATE
  May 2025

My first foray into tinkering with vintage electronics: modifying my old Game Boy Advance.

The goal was to bring the original hardware into the modern day by adding some basic usability and quality-of-life features, while keeping the same fundamental user experience. That led to a few specific choices in hardware changes, or lack thereof.

A comparison with the stock GBA and a frontlit SP. The pixel definition! The colors! Wild how much of an improvement it is.

Overall I'm super happy with how it turned out. It's still a Game Boy Advance, just with some upgrades that eliminate a lot of headaches (literal and metaphorical), while keeping it authentic to the original experience.

The whole process was surpisingly easy, and it's really empowering to have the tools and knowledge to execute a project like this. More to come.