iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 21/08/2026

I’m here to report that I have been engaged by jerry. The TV lawyer said I may be due some sort of compensation?

Jerry liking my post about issuing an internet recall

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 13/08/2026

my wife trying to eat her yogurt in peace after a long day

Photo from my wife’s POV of two dogs staring longingly at her and her yogurt

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 09/07/2026

@hankgreen.bsky.social just a heads up, on 4x3, when both dark mode and high contrast are enabled, the selected tile background is really hard to see (Left is nothing selected, right is "Slide" selected)

No tiles selected, dark mode, high-contrast

Tile selected, dark mode, high contrast enabled, the selected tile background is very slightly grayer than the other tiles

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 23/06/2026

approaching dinner time and

Anthony Bourdain walking down a street. Subtitle says "I got a serious lust for shawarma."

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 11/05/2026

Built a new Game Boy — this is a Game Boy Pocket Color using Bucket Mouse‘s board, and a yellow OEM MGB shell. Well pleased with it!

Front of yellow MGBC. It’s off, so it looks like a normal yellow MGB in good condition (okay maybe you can tell it doesn’t have an OEM screen)

Same Game Boy but with Mario Golf playing in full, delicious color

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 30/04/2026

I mean… this is pretty neat

uConsole running Macintosh System 7.6 on BasiliskII

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 28/02/2026

One caveat is that I think maybe the power draw is higher than the Q5 on startup and it seems like it’s maybe triggering the bootloop protection on @mousebitelabs.bsky.social’s power board

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 28/02/2026

The new hispeedido 2.8“ laminated GBC display uses the same viewing area as their laminated GBP display, which means you can just swap the driver boards for an MGBC/PoCo/LoCo Works with the toggle switch on MGBC also

Yellow Gameboy pocket color with a laminated 2.8“ IPS display. Polished crystal title screen is loaded

Hispeedido 2.8“ Gameboy Color screen connected to the driver boards for the 2.8“ GBP screen. Pokemon Brown title screen is showing

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 10/10/2025

Next challenge: fixing some graphic glitches. 144p test ROM is particularly interesting. Many things work as expected, but the main screen has some clear issues, and then the gradient test does... whatever this is (Epilepsy warning: rapidly flashing colors)

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 10/10/2025

gogo-gb update: I have color, mostly kinda working. Here's Pokemon Yellow & Pokemon Crystal

Pokemon Yellow with the "Technology is incredible" guy in Pallet Town

Pokemon Crystal. Kris is talking to a lady who says "Wow, your POKEGEAR is impressive!"

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 29/09/2025

The LEGO DMG is pretty cool! Stand is a nice touch. LEGO knows their audience! Here it is next to my DMG Color:

Officially licensed Game Boy DMG Lego set on stand with LEGO Zelda Links Awakening and Super Mario Land cartridges next to a real DMG Color and the equivalent real cartridges

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 26/09/2025

dortch szn is when you’re in an airport with me and you leave your AirDrop open

Share with all your friends to totally dortch them

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 22/07/2025

Finished the DMG Color build last night. Probably the most lengthy build I’ve done, but liked being able to chunk it up a bit. Enjoyed the experience and extremely pleased with the result!

DMG Color in an original DMG shell with reflected lens. Mario Tennis is loaded.

Back of the Game Boy, showing Mario Tennis cart and special DMG Color stickers made by Next Stop Please

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 29/05/2025

Had some setbacks in my DMG-C build, so made another MGBC. Had to go for my own white-out Pocket Color (my earlier white chop PoCo was sacrificed for my DMG-C)

All-white Game Boy Pocket Color with Pokémon Crystal version loaded. It has a glass screen lens with a white background and Pikachus on it. It is sitting on an acrylic stand.

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 23/05/2025

got a Game Boy Camera, so here are some photos of the dogs (going do to do the 2BitToy Game Boy Camera+ mod, and get a ridiculous zoom lens)

A very low resolution photo of Tessa, a tri-color dog

A very low resolution photo of Lilly resting her head on the end of the couch

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 19/04/2025

The blue buttons and white membranes from my previous build vibing with me anymore, so swapped in some RetroCNC purple ones, which gives it a nice Pokémon/Vikings theme that I think works much better. Will probably end up doing a white-out one for my final MGBC build after I do the DMG Color

Prior MGBC build with transparent shell, “sparking yellow mouse” power regulator, and aluminum purple buttons with light purple membranes. The game “Lee Carvallo’s Putting Challenge II”

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 19/04/2025

Built another MGBC this week. A DMG-ish style. The donor board for this one had some battery corrosion and ended up needing to salvage another volume wheel, but the completed product came out great!

A gray DMG-style MGBC with maroon & gray buttons on a stand. The title screen for the game “Unearthed 2024”

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 05/03/2025

All-white OLED Game Boy POCO turned out decently! It’s using @josephtomkins.bsky.social‘s POCO shell for laminated displays, and then his AA GBP rear shell design

Game Boy Pocket Color with a laminated GBC OLED display (with the curve). It has all white buttons as well, and a white screen lens.

The same POCO with the game Unearthed loaded

The same POCO in a slightly darker environment

Back of the POCO showing a translucent white rear shell

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 16/02/2025

Replacement DC jack fixed it — was able to wrap up the build (except for the headphone jack, which also needs replacing — audio works fine through it but corrosion is keeping the headphone switch enabled when empty) Pleased with it! Will probably do another one and sell this one tbh

A transparent completed MGBC build running a Pokémon game. There’s a power regulator visible that for legal reasons looks like a yellow sparking mouse.

The same MGBC resting on a computer, with the game Flooder loaded

Back of the MGBC, showing more-or-less orderly soldering and wiring. Very clean.

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 08/02/2025

Hot air & solder paste, once again, is undefeated. All the practice w/ the cartridge board EEPROM chips has paid off. I need to get a bit more on the board before I can test it, so entirely possible there's some cold joints or bridging I missed, but pleased with it so far!

Shot from below the RAM and CPU. All pins seem to be relatively well-aligned, and no bridges.

Shot from above the RAM and CPU. All pins seem to be relatively well-aligned, and no bridges.

Shot of the left side of the RAM and CPU. All pins seem to be relatively well-aligned, and no bridges.

Shot from below the CPU. All pins seem to be relatively well-aligned, and no bridges.

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 01/02/2025

Passives done (except for the few near CPU, P2)

MGBC board with (mostly) all passives soldered

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 25/01/2025

Alrighty, finally getting started on this MGBC

MGBC board with lower-half passives soldered on

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 25/01/2025

excited to say that as of the last couple weeks (and mostly last week), my GB emulator mostly just plays games as expected now still no audio, nowhere close to passing dmg_acid2, more to implement (like RTC for MBC3), and got some bugs w/ my MBC1 implementation and more bugs to discover

screenshot of my emulator of an NPC in Pallet Town saying "Technology is incredible!" to my character in a first-gen Pokemon game

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 18/01/2025

it was a pain, but gave a good cleaning and removed battery corrosion on a GC Wavebird controller and Wiimote Should’ve taken before photos, but these were pretty gross before (think dirt from sitting in bag for 10-15 years)

Platinum GameCube Wavebird controller and Wiimote next to each other. Both looking pretty clean, almost new, except for some spots of missing paint on GC controller.

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 04/01/2025

Fixed! It's BG priority over OBJ 🤦‍♂️, not the other way around (pandocs just calls the OBJ attribute priority, which threw me off and made me think "ahh object priority")

The same "Technology is Incredible" NPC from Pokemon, but now the background layer is properly behind the objects

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 01/01/2025

clearly some work to do on object priority over background

scene from gen I pokemon game w/ Pallet Town NPC saying "Technology is incredible". Meanwhile, the background pixels are overlapping the object pixels causing the grass to appear on top of the player and NPC.

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 18/12/2024

Anyway, here’s my unhinged Game Boy I’m calling the “Skol Boy Color” “Game Skol”? Idk #gameboy #modding #moddedgameboyclub

Back of GBC is a purple OEM shell with the yellow shell’s battery cover

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 18/12/2024

Got this GBC from Japan a few weeks ago. It’s in great shape, generally, so I’m using it in a stock-ish build, but I found this from-the-factory mistake on the power regulator. I don’t know anything about the regulator circuitry, so not sure the effects of this, but it’s been working for 25 years

A GBC power regulator an unmarked capacitor is solder perpendicular to an unmarked resistor, instead of to its other pad.

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 07/12/2024

lol nvm just a dirty ribbon cable

Yellow Game Boy Color booted to the title screen for DragonWarrior I & II, with the screen displaying as expected

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 07/12/2024

Replaced the switch with one of the ones from Helder game tech and now it powers on, so probably the corrosion just got to the switch. OEM screen on this thing is barely working, but I think I have a donor somewhere from my POCO build that might work #gameboy #modding #moddedgameboyclub

Yellow game boy color at the Game Boy splash screen. The screen contents can be barely made out.

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 28/11/2024

bought this GBC that won’t power on for parts for an MGBC build, but wanted to validate I can get it to turn on somewhat before I take some of its parts Corrosion under the power switch broke the traces from the switch to the back, but fixed it for pin 3. #gameboy #modding #retrorepair (1/2)

Picture of Gameboy color power switch with jumper wire running from SW1VCC trace on back of board to pin 3 on power switch

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 21/11/2024

Made some MBC3s today (MousebiteLabs PCBs). No RTC for now, because I forgot to order the right resistor for R2, but mostly pleased with the solder job on these, save for the EEPROM on the one on the right, which I misaligned a bit. (We’ll see if it works) No plans for these yet

Two assembled Mousebitelabs MBC3 cartridge PCBs side-by-side. One has a bent/misaligned pin on the EEPROM

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 18/11/2024

Built my first GB cartridge using MouseBiteLabs’s MBC5 board! Went quite smoothly. This one was for my copy of Ben Jelter’s Metamorphosis Collection Only made a couple minor mistakes (slightly bent one of the EEPROM pins, which needed lots of extra work to keep from bridging to its neighbor)

A built MBC5 cartridge using MouseBiteLabs’s MBC5 board

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 16/11/2024

The canceled TV show that you’ll never stop thinking about

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 16/11/2024

nice. love the hot air station

Picture of an MBC5 and two Gameboy cartridge battery ICs desoldered from their donor boards

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 15/11/2024

“do you think a depressed person would [buy all] this?”

Picture of boxed hot air rework station, unboxed fume extractor, boxes and bags of ICs from DigiKey

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 10/11/2024

Alrighty, fixed my mistakes (front shell replacement, new lens) #gameboy #gameboymodding

Gray Game Boy Pocket Color with silver the Famitsu screen lens

Backside of the same game boy, showing a Pokémon Gold cartridge sticking out, Gameboy Color sticker on back of the Gameboy Pocket shell

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 06/11/2024

Also did a Froggulator on my regular Game Boy Pocket!

Froggulator mod on a transparent green Game Boy Pocket

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 06/11/2024

Select button fixed! (Reflowed pad on flex) 💪 also wired up the battery indicator on the OSD since I’m not putting in an LED. I have a replacement front shell coming to fix some stripped screw holes and a replacement speaker but otherwise, this baby is done!

Gray Gameboy Pocket Color with maroon buttons showing all working buttons on Better Button Test

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 03/11/2024

Alright, probably broke something on the flex. Ran a little jumper wire instead, and that fixed it! But in the process, seem to have (partially) broken the Select button trace on the flex. Only works in combo with A and/or B, but managed to get it working enough to align the screen through the OSD

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 03/11/2024

Alive!!! (Sort of. “A” button doesn’t work)

Game Boy Pocket Color with Better Button Test ROM loaded showing a bunch of button presses except “A”

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 03/11/2024

I’m definitely getting better. Look at these solder joints!

NatalieTheNerd Poco 1:1 V2 kit with pretty damn good soldered joints on the flex

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 10/10/2024

The Boxy Pixel kits are niiiiice Hinges a bit more wiggly with it than I expected (might just be my hinges) but other than that it’s a great kit

A red Boxy Pixel hinged GBA SP kit with Pokémon Ruby open, sitting on a black desk

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 25/09/2024

happened upon a good deal for one of these this weekend. Time to hack it 😊 (so glad to discover you don’t need a Pandora Battery anymore)

A PSP-1000 in pretty good shape, sitting on an oak desk next to a copy of Madden NFL 07 for the PSP

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pixelated max @mx4ke.xyz · 16/09/2024

This place for my first month was mostly literal posts of skies, some cats, BlueSky employees, and a lot of posts from a guy named Mark. Knew a lot about Mark in that month. Don't remember his name or handle though. Honestly, very impressive growth. #bluesky10m

I'm user number 5094, apparently. (Joined Mar 26, 2023)

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