Restoration of original DMG gameboy (1990)
Description
I’ve had my original Game Boy stashed at the back of the cupboard under the lounge TV for years. I honestly haven’t used it since my early teens, when it was a joint Christmas gift for my brother and me. Since then, it’s been used by other siblings, stored in a loft for decades, and at some point ended up out of sight and mind in the lounge.
My son’s massively into Nintendo. I’ve known that the Game Boy won’t switch on, but I keep telling him I’ll take a look at fixing it. Well, this is it—eventually, I got round to it…
Brief History
A bit of backstory: the original Game Boy, codenamed DMG (Dot Matrix Game), was headed up by Gunpei Yokoi. I mention this because his ideas and philosophy shaped its design.
While other companies were creating power-hungry, colour portable consoles, Nintendo’s creation didn’t have colour—and it didn’t even have a backlight. Every design decision led to a portable console that wasn’t power-hungry and could last up to 30 hours on batteries.
At launch, its smaller, lighter size, long battery life, and lower price point made it a huge success. Units sold out quickly, and globally, over 100 million were sold—while the Game Gear only managed around 11 million.
Power Issue
Well, it definitely wouldn’t power on. There was corrosion—typical of a battery leak—in the battery compartment. After using a fibreglass pen to clean it, I had success within minutes.
Below, you can see a black bar where the Nintendo logo should be. There’s no cartridge inserted, and the logo is actually read from the cartridge and compared to a copy on the console as part of the DRM. This meant the copyright was technically broken, as “Nintendo” was stored on the cartridge.
Corruption
So I sourced some games off eBay—they weren’t working at first. This was a simple fix again, though a bit more hands-on than just blowing on the cartridges. I had to use isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and a cotton bud to clean the contacts. One of them needed the fibreglass brush as well.
That’s when it became obvious there were audio issues—sound only worked through headphones. I’ll try to address that when I disassemble it for the screen replacement.
Broken LCD Screen
Even though it impacts battery life, I opted for a modern IPS LCD display with a backlight—and honestly, it’s amazing. The original screen is so hard to see, I’d completely forgotten what it was like. There are many options out there, and I sourced the one linked below.
With the necessary parts in hand, including a Game Boy-specific tri-wing screwdriver, I took the console apart. Luckily, it was in perfect condition—no corrosion on the PCBs at all!
There weren’t clear instructions for the installation, but I managed it with great results. Here’s a basic rundown of the steps:
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Open the case and remove the two boards.
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De-solder the speaker from the old screen PCB and solder it to the new one.
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Insert the CPU board into the lower half of the shell.
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Attach the screen using the provided double-sided tape. The position is adjustable, but if you get it right, no tweaking is needed.
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Test the screen—if it’s working, great!
Before screwing it all back together, I’ll need to take a closer look at that audio issue.
Audio issues
While I had it apart for the screen replacement, I took a look at the headphone jack—a common issue in DMGs when corrosion sets in. Inserting the headphone jack actually switches audio output to the headphones. If the jack, which is soldered to a small PCB, gets corroded, it can permanently engage the headphone mode, bypassing the speaker entirely.
Play!
It took me a few attempts, but I finally completed Super Mario Bros. 3! The level of trolling Nintendo did in its games is absolutely infuriating. In one attempt, I lost lives and got a continue. On the last life of the continue, I managed to progress further, but as I went to jump a gap, I hit an invisible block that sent me to my doom! Eye rolls and plenty of swearing followed!
References
DMG-01: