Digitizing photos from the 1998 Game Boy Camera (opens in new tab)

(swiftrocks.com)

68 pointsrockbruno1mo ago15 comments

15 comments

You can also dump GB Camera photos with GBxCart RW. Those can also be used to dump ROMs/saves and reprogram flash carts. The cheap GBC games off Ali express are flash carts in reality.

rockbrunoOP1mo ago

Oh yeah I forgot to mention that, it was the first option I considered but getting it shipped to Sweden was super expensive. So it didn't make sense considering I just wanted the camera dump feature. Buying the pcb and port on the other hand only costed me about 10 bucks since I already had an Arduino laying around, and also served as some necessary soldering practice :)

donatj1mo ago

The GB Operator will let you dump photos from a Game Boy Camera as well as stream video from the camera in real time. It's a fun little device.

They'd promised a webcam driver, but that never materialized and instead just gave instructions on using OBS to use the video stream window as a camera.

https://www.epilogue.co/product/gb-operator

https://www.epilogue.co/support/playing-games/gb-camera-webc...

swq1151mo ago

The Game Boy Camera was 128x112 pixels with 4 shades of gray. The fact that people are still finding ways to pull images off these things almost 30 years later is peak hacker energy

kevin_thibedeau1mo ago

I recently played through a battery backed DMG game I last played in 1994 and the saved games were still good.

ljf1mo ago

These look brilliant and remind me of the pictures from my Casio watch camera: https://www.casio.com/intl/watches/50th/Heritage/2000s/

I really need to dig that out, from memory the software only worked with Win98 or ME - but I guess there must be a way of getting it running elsewhere (or getting my ME laptop running).

gyomu1mo ago

This is very neat!

Some parallel thinking here, but it feels like it should be possible to build a software only version of this running entirely on a smartphone.

Take a picture of the GameBoy screen, and the app reconstructs the source image. It's only 128x128 2-bit depth pixels after all - the information content there seems well within the bounds of what can be reconstructed from a modern high resolution smartphone camera sensor.

Would be a cool computer vision project.

techknight1mo ago

The JoeyJr is also a great tool for this. It can dump and write GB carts but specially detects when you plug in a GB camera and gives you a folder of image files.

https://bennvenn.myshopify.com/products/usb-gb-c-cart-dumper...

ljf1mo ago

Interesting article, but shame the images are blocked in the UK - guessing imgur?

rockbrunoOP1mo ago

I had no idea they blocked imgur on the UK. I'll move it to self-hosted!

ljf1mo ago

Thank you! Much appreciated

zyx3211mo ago

Since when is that a thing? I'll presume they're boycotting the new age verification laws?

voidUpdate1mo ago

Its been a thing since September 30th 2025, and apparently its just embedded content on third party sites, and account features on imgur itself that are blocked. I think its a "we don't want to adhere to your data protection laws" instead of an age thing

https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/41592665292443-Imgu...

Tommix111mo ago

Great work! I have a GB camera (and printer) in my collection

anthk1mo ago

MGBA emulates the GB camera too.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

15 comments

chocochunks1mo ago

You can also dump GB Camera photos with GBxCart RW. Those can also be used to dump ROMs/saves and reprogram flash carts. The cheap GBC games off Ali express are flash carts in reality.

rockbrunoOP1mo ago

donatj1mo ago

The GB Operator will let you dump photos from a Game Boy Camera as well as stream video from the camera in real time. It's a fun little device.

They'd promised a webcam driver, but that never materialized and instead just gave instructions on using OBS to use the video stream window as a camera.

https://www.epilogue.co/product/gb-operator

https://www.epilogue.co/support/playing-games/gb-camera-webc...

swq1151mo ago

The Game Boy Camera was 128x112 pixels with 4 shades of gray. The fact that people are still finding ways to pull images off these things almost 30 years later is peak hacker energy

kevin_thibedeau1mo ago

I recently played through a battery backed DMG game I last played in 1994 and the saved games were still good.

ljf1mo ago

These look brilliant and remind me of the pictures from my Casio watch camera: https://www.casio.com/intl/watches/50th/Heritage/2000s/

I really need to dig that out, from memory the software only worked with Win98 or ME - but I guess there must be a way of getting it running elsewhere (or getting my ME laptop running).

gyomu1mo ago

This is very neat!

Some parallel thinking here, but it feels like it should be possible to build a software only version of this running entirely on a smartphone.

Would be a cool computer vision project.

techknight1mo ago

The JoeyJr is also a great tool for this. It can dump and write GB carts but specially detects when you plug in a GB camera and gives you a folder of image files.

https://bennvenn.myshopify.com/products/usb-gb-c-cart-dumper...

ljf1mo ago

Interesting article, but shame the images are blocked in the UK - guessing imgur?

rockbrunoOP1mo ago

I had no idea they blocked imgur on the UK. I'll move it to self-hosted!

ljf1mo ago

Thank you! Much appreciated

zyx3211mo ago

Since when is that a thing? I'll presume they're boycotting the new age verification laws?

voidUpdate1mo ago

https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/41592665292443-Imgu...

Tommix111mo ago

Great work! I have a GB camera (and printer) in my collection

anthk1mo ago

MGBA emulates the GB camera too.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse