Developer budude2 has updated the Analogue Pocket GBC core that he’s ported from the version available on the MiSTerFPGA.
One of the first available cores for the Analogue Pocket were ones for the original Game Boy and Game Boy Color. Those were spontaneously released by spiritualized1997 and little is known about the developer or their plans for updating their cores.
Budude released their version of the Game Boy and Game Boy Color core in January of this year. The spiritualized core supported save states, or as Analogue branding would name them, memories. The budude cores did not, but offered Super Game Boy support, fast forward, and most notably, real-time clock support.
Now, budude has updated his core with full save state support, making it identical to the one from the MiSTerFPGA.
Cores in the Analogue Pocket enable it to play games off of the system’s SD card as opposed to solely through physical cartridges and adapters. Unlike all currently available retro handhelds, the Pocket uses FPGA technology to emulate consoles at the hardware level, not software. It offers a near 1:1 experience to playing on original hardware in most cases — and occasionally offers new features like the save states and fast forward mentioned above.
Core development for the Analogue Pocket is entirely led by the community — for free — and its desire to make the console better. Developers from all over the world have made cores for consoles ranging from the Atari 2600 to the Vectrex. Jotego is currently leading the charge in making cores for dozens of classic arcade games and currently offers development updates and pre-release versions of new cores on their Patreon.
Adding save-state support to the GBC core isn’t the end of budude’s plans. He’s announced via Reddit that he plans to release a port of the GBA MiSTer core; notable for having RTC support, unlike the current GBA core for the Pocket.
Porting cores from one FPGA to another isn’t a simple process, and requires its own time and development. For that reason, there is no estimate of when the core will be in a working state, but development is consistent
Are you excited to have a fully featured core for Game Boy Color games? More interested in the future development of the Game Boy Advance core? Let us know in the comments below, and chat with us in our Discord!
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