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Game Boy Advance BIOS

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Title Screen

Game Boy Advance BIOS

Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Released in JP: March 21, 2001
Released in US: June 11, 2001
Released in EU: June 22, 2001
Released in AU: June 22, 2001[1]
Released in KR: June 2001[2]
Released in CN: June 8, 2004 (iQue Game Boy Advance)


CodeIcon.png This console has unused code.
CopyrightIcon.png This console has hidden developer credits.


ProtoIcon.png This console has a prototype article
PrereleaseIcon.png This console has a prerelease article

Hmmm...
To do:
Stuff from the source code in the 2020-07-25 Nintendo leak.

The Game Boy Advance (GBA) was essentially the true successor to the original Game Boy line launched in 2001. It added an ARM7-based 32-bit CPU on the top of the Z80-based 8-bit CPU used by previous Game Boy models, allowing for full backwards compatibility with the entire Game Boy (GB) and Game Boy Color (GBC) software library (aside from a few games that used GB/GBC exclusive features, mind you) in addition to its own games. Due to hardware simplification, this feature would be removed in the later Game Boy Micro models though, limiting its support only to GBA cartridges (similarly, the original Nintendo DS and the Nintendo DS Lite are also limited to only GBA cartridges for their backwards compatibility).

Its BIOS was more sophisticated than previous models' bootstrap ROMs, containing a variety of routines that games could use to speed up or simplify operations.

Sub-Pages

Read about prototype versions of this game that have been released or dumped.
Prototype Info
Read about prerelease information and/or media for this game.
Prerelease Info

Developer Credit

// Coded by Kawasedo

The five keys (normal, multi, joybus, prng multiplier, and constant) are used by the GBA to decrypt multiboot images sent over the link cable. When combined, they form this message from the developer.

Kawasedo

The last two keys also appear later in the BIOS. "Kawasedo" is a nickname used by Tomohiro Kawase, a Nintendo employee most notable for his work on official emulation projects such as the NES emulators included in Animal Crossing and Metroid Prime.

References

  1. [1], @NintendoAUNZ: "On this day 20 years ago, the Game Boy Advance was released in Australia and New Zealand. What's your favourite memory of this handheld console?"
  2. [2], via Google Translate: "DaewonCI plans to complete the contract with Nintendo before June 1, when overseas sales of the Game Boy Advance begin, and start supplying the product in earnest from June to supply about 100,000 game consoles in Korea for one year."