SP was popular because it was what the Advance should have been to start. I got an Advance at release and the screen was really nice when I could strain my eyes enough to see anything.

My other favorite Nintendo “WTF” is anything to do with the N64 controller, look it up a teardown if you’re bored

My favourite WTF regarding the N64 controller was that it apparently re-zeroed the center point on startup but didn't monitor the range of readings in any way. So in some games you could speed hack by holding the joystick downwards/backwards on startup and and generate faster-than-100% run speeds.

I remember the centering as a problem, but never thought about exploiting it in a game. I am very disappointed with me from 20 years ago.

I find this very interesting, do you have any sources you can share, related to this, where I could read more?

Unfortunately not, it was just something I remember hearing/reading about back when N64s were somewhat relevant... I've had a look around but I can't find anything to back it up so maybe it was just an urban legend.

> I got an Advance at release and the screen was really nice when I could strain my eyes enough to see anything.

I seem to remember you could get the picture to fill up the screen. I wouldn't be surprised if this introduced some artifacts though.

I think GP is referring to the unlit, relatively low-contract LCD screen that was only readable in bright light conditions.

The SP was better, but only somewhat: it had a button for front-lit lighting so the image quality was still pretty mediocre. I presume to save battery life, since a back-lit would have lead to much more light loss.

A couple years after the GBA SP (AGS-001) a new revision of it, the AGS-101, came to market. That revision used a backlit screen and the toggle button allowed you to switch between a dim and bright backlight mode. If my memory serves right games on that revision looked like they would on the original Nintendo DS. Obviously battery life took a significant hit compared to playing on the AGS-001 with the frontlight disabled.

There was also the backlit Gameboy Light, which was only released in Japan. It was essentially a Gameboy Pocket with a electroluminescent back-light. It glowed green like those old Indiglo wrist watches.

I've got one, but sadly the LCD has a bunch of dead lines. Apparently, that can be repaired pretty easily.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_Boy_family#Game_Boy_Light

The AGS-101 was never advertised outside North America and stayed relatively unknown. I don't fault OP for not knowing about it.

Game Boy pocket would be nice to have as well. Especially because it would be interesting to compare it to Gunpei’s original design.

If anyone has a scanner who is interested in doing this, I own every model available and am willing to lend out devices to have scanned.