@onfy @noiob yeah

@noiob @onfy i don't know why it needs power from the gba when i know the gamecube provides power over the controller ports. and afaik it's only doing voltage regulation in there anyway

@monorail @onfy are you sure the power flows from the GBA to the Gamecube?

@monorail @onfy ah, it's not possible to test because the battery is required for it to boot, but I'd guess that it's some kind of "keep the GBA alive while it's wired anyways" thing

@noiob @monorail That could be interesting, it sucks when your controller dies.

You can remove original GBA batteries while it's on...

@noiob @monorail ...and who wants to lose their chao?

@noiob @onfy pretty sure it's not this because "gba->gc link cable covers the charge port on the sp" is a common annoyance people bring up, sometimes going far enough to modify the cable to make room for the charger (because the only thing stopping you from charging at the same time is plastic)

@noiob @onfy which wouldn't matter if it was getting powered from the gc

@monorail @noiob Nintendo sure can be arbitrary.

@noiob @onfy i know that power at least can flow in that direction, couldn't tell you if it does but all i need is the port with the connected pins anyway

@monorail @noiob Maybe I'll test with Game Boy Player later.

GBI does claim to do "power saving tricks", though that might just be because it powers off the screen.

@monorail @onfy hm, it certainly does something, even my cheapo adapter has those pins connected and some circuitry inside

@noiob @onfy yesterday i asked a friend who'd know and they said that when doing gba->gc link stuff, it uses a custom protocol called joybus that the gba and gc both speak

so those chips aren't doing anything to the signal most likely, it's probably just voltage regulation

i wonder if the only thing that's for is stepping 5V down to 3.3V if necessary (since the link port outputs a different voltage based on whether or not a switch inside the cartridge slot is being held down)

@noiob @onfy (gb/gbc games hold down the switch, and the gba goes into 5V mode. gba games don't, so it stays in 3.3V mode)

@monorail @noiob I guess that's also why Nintendont needs native passthrough for link cable stuff.

@onfy @noiob on some level you must just be able to send data out the data pins and have them reach the gamecube, because i have a rom on my flashcart that bitbangs gamecube controller packets over the link cable and it works perfectly fine to control games with no gba support. it just receives the packets and sees it as a gamecube controller

@monorail @noiob That sounds hilarious. Wonder if it supports multi boot, because there's homebrew for booting roms that way.

@onfy @noiob yep! before the flashcart showed up i used to use wii homebrew to beam the rom to my gba, then switch to other games without turning off the gba

@onfy @noiob i even used to use the wii homebrew to boot the rom, then bring the cable over to my pc and plug it into the controller adapter there to use it as a controller for emulators and stuff

@onfy @noiob video of it in action btw https://youtu.be/p_8L4K6ThCQ

@monorail @noiob That's amazing. Silly, but also amazing.

@monorail @noiob I remember asking for a link cable and getting that.

I did not yet own a GameCube, so it was a cable that did nothing.