One of my goals with GBE+ is to program an emulator that is as complete as I can possibly make it. That means emulating devices like the GB Printer. To tell the truth, I had my eye on GB Printer support for some time, but only recently have I done enough work on the DMG/GBC core to make that possible. A long time ago, I tried getting the GB Printer to work in VBA-M (1.8.0) but the Linux version didn’t seem to do anything. That is to say, VBA-M did emulate the printer as if it were connected, but it didn’t save the image anywhere I could find. The Windows version worked flawlessly and showed me the final print as I expected. Maybe that was just user-error on my part, but it inspired me to one day make an emulator that would properly emulate the GB Printer on Linux, my OS of choice. Digressing, let’s take a look at what the GB Printer is doing and how it interacts with a Game Boy system.
The Game Boy Camera and Game Boy Printer were these almost mythical items I’d talk about with my friends and my brothers, and the idea of taking photos with a Game Boy was so wild and out there it sparked our imaginations. To this day, I’ve never seen or used one in real life, and that bums me out.
I had both back in the days. The camera was great fun, with many software features, including mini games and an ability to animate photos (like a gif). The main problem was that storage was very limited, 30 photos if I remember well. I played a lot with this. It also was my first digital camera, and I convinced my parents to get an actual digital camera a few years later, I think thanks in part to the GameBoy Camera that proved the appeal of the concept.
The printer was a disappointing useless toy for me. Small prints that could not be used for anything relevant.