How Pokemon Gen 2's real time clock worked - Game Boy mappers explained | White_Pointer Gaming
1,978The generation 2 Pokemon games - Gold, Silver and Crystal, were pretty ambitious, being the first games in the series to implement a day/night cycle determined by a real time clock that kept time even when the game was off. How exactly did they manage to do this on the humble Game Boy and Game Boy Color? It's time to deep dive into this and also how the hardware pulled off some other cool stuff!
0:00 Intro
0:37 Game Boy cartridge internals
3:31 Pokemon's real time clock
7:17 Other Nintendo mappers, more Pokemon
10:40 Third party mappers, changeable batteries, even more Pokemon
12:52 Conclusion
Further reading:
https://b13rg.icecdn.tech/Gameboy-MBC-Analysis/
https://brainbaking.com/post/2023/04/historical-usage-of-memory-bank-controllers-in-game-boy-carts/
https://gbdev.io/pandocs/MBCs.html
https://gbdk.org/docs/api/docs_rombanking_mbcs.html
https://gbhwdb.gekkio.fi/cartridges/mbc3.html
https://mgba-emu.github.io/gbdoc/#mbc
Purchase my book "Secrets of Video Game Consoles" directly from the publisher here: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Secrets-of-Video-Game-Consoles-Hardback/p/21804
Also available as an ebook!
Some other links:
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/secrets-of-video-game-consoles-michael-hart/1141719061
https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Secrets-Video-Game-Consoles/Michael-Hart/9781399070898?id=8581812121026
https://www.angusrobertson.com.au/books/secrets-of-video-game-consoles-michael-hart/p/9781399070898
https://www.booktopia.com.au/secrets-of-video-game-consoles-michael-hart/book/9781399070898.html
https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/secrets-of-video-game-consoles/9781399070898-item.html
https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Video-Game-Consoles-Michael-ebook/dp/B0B72B6JYR
Or check out your favourite book store, hopefully they have it in stock!