I felt like it was worth pausing for a moment to list some of the planned projects across this year. As always you can find these projects on our Coven Projects page, as well as our Trello!

GBA-SP Cartridge Slot Breakout Board

Before 2025 had wrapped I had already started on this project, but I have changed the requirements a few times. These changes to the requirements I think will lead to a better assembly and use of these boards. Since I changed the requirements the boards needed an additional revision.

One of the new requirements was to make adjustments to the footprint for the cartridge slot. These adjustments would be to match and be more tolerant to different cartridge slot OEMs. The new footprints include larger pads, to assist in soldering the pins, and the mounting ears. Design wise the boards will also need mounting holes for the board holder. Once I have added the mounting holes, I will re-organize the PCB layout for the production test boards.

Having completed the new PCB layouts, I will begin the design of the board holder 3d print files. I will design a jig to assist with holding the board’s pins when soldering them. If these fixes to the boards are a success, I will be releasing the files, and ordering a production run.

What is the use of a Cartridge Slot Breakout Board?

In order to test boards, cartridges, and the signals between consoles I need a way to connect into those circuits. This breakout board allows for the interfacing with circuits on GBA/GBC/GB cartridges, and groups them into similar function clusters

Hyper Cartridge Slot

I don’t want to reveal too much, but I have an idea for a future Hyper Cartridge. While I am not ready for that or all the projects associated with it, I will need to develop some parts of the “standard” One item of that standard is the cartridge slot. One of the later projects includes a need for a GBA/GBC/GB cartridge slot, and I chose to use the planned Hyper Cartridge Slot instead to future proof the project slightly.

GBA/GBC/GB Cartridge Reader/Flasher

As previously mentioned I have a project planned that includes the ability to interact with GBA/GBC/GB Cartridges which is a Reader/Flasher. I wanted to be future proof in the design of the flasher knowing some of my plans. One way I plan to do that is to include some modular parts, to allow it to be upgraded to support GB Hyper Cartridges in the future. In the current model this will allow for initial interaction with 1 cartridge at a time, and a future software update to interact with 2 cartridges at once.

Reverse Engineer and Reproduce GBA Cartridge with RTC

My major goal for this year is the reverse engineering of one or more GBA cartridges with real time clocks with the goal of eventually creating my own design with modern hardware. This project will rely heavily on some other projects but I hope to be in a position to have a functional prototype by the end of the year.

In order to do this I will need to have the cartridge flasher running by the end of the summer.

Cartridge PCB Breakout Board

One additional part of the reverse engineering tool kit will be a Cartridge PCB Breakout Board. This board will allow for the end to end connection of a cartridge to a console, with probes in the middle. I may in the future incorporate both this, as well as the slot breakout board into one singular PCB. I am saving that project for later in the year to next year.