Mr. Flash Professor Kit
Status:  No longer produced

(which contains a Flash Linker and one Mr. Flash 64M)
(Identical to the GB  Professor kit made by Bung)

 
 
 

Preface:

It's 12:40 AM, and yesterday was my 18th birthday.  You may be wondering why I'm writing this review so late at night, but the answer is simple.  Today I discovered probably the most important gameboy accessory ever developed...  The GB Xchanger (AKA the Flash Linker).  After parties and plenty of green beer I got home and tore into this puppy, and I just put it down now.  So here's the disclaimer.  DMG-ICE does not endorse the use of this equipment for anything else but personal programming.  We also don't endorse emulators (even though they're totally legal), the distribution of ROM files, or anything that could be illegal in this arena.  This review is just my opinion (the Yakster) of some products that I think are cool. And I wanted to share my discovery with you.
 
 

Background:

I'm reviewing these pieces of equipment for a number of reasons.  First of all, it's GB hardware, which is my specialty.  Second, it's controvercial, and I love being political about things like this.  But mainly because I think this beast is the sweetest piece of work I've ever seen.

Anyways, what these units are all about is being able to do stuff that the big "N" doesn't want you to do.  This development system provides programming-savy individuals who want to try their hand at video game programming the arena to prove themselves.  By using the Xchanger and the 64M rewritable flash cartridge, anyone who wants to put in the time to code a game can try it on a REAL gameboy, instead of software based emulators which are dodgy and inaccurate at best.  With the Xchanger, code can be written and re-written, with multiple versions of games on the cartridge f
or development and testing purposes (more efficient).

What this unit has become about, however, is piracy.  This unit contains the ability to both dump GBC cartridges to ROM files that could be distributed over the internet, and the ability to burn rewritable cartridges with ROM files of games that were distributed illegally over the internet, BBS's, Usenet, and wherever else you could find them.  Because of it's relatively inexpensive retail cost, this unit has become the favorite of pirates because of it's unprecedented quality and loads of features.

Nintendo took note of this, because they were losing money not through piracy, but because their own third party developers were using this setup instead of the much more expensive, and much less wieldy equivalent.  As a result, they sued the manufacturer of this device, Bung electronics, for $6 Million USD.  While this didn't stop them entirely, it placed an injunction on their products in North and South America.  So, a new company was formed called Mr. Flash, which sold the same products with less hassle over the internet.  This is how I got mine.  However, thee have been events that happened near te end of February that have been undisclosed, and now, both Bung and Mr. Flash have been banned from marketting these products all together.  I was lucky I ordered mine when I did.

Anyways, there's a lot of controversy involved, needless to say, and I'll try to put forth and honest, neutral opinion of the device based on it's merits.
 

What's in the box:

The package that arrived was shipped standard airmail, and the customs seal showed that no duty was paid.  The shipping label claimed the contents were a "Parallel port adapter" and "Memory Card", a sneaky way to say what the contents are to say the least.  Inside the slightly bulging package was the flash linker and memory card, wrapped nicely in plastic shipping matterial to avoid damage, as well as a tiny English/Chinese manual and a CD of tools and demo ROMs.

The documentation in the manual is fair, however, there are so many different software tools that support the GBX, it would have been nice to see more than just 2 or 3 outlined.  Also, the manual didn't really specify the type of cable needed to hook up the computer.  I figured a standard 25 pin parallel male-female connector would suffice, but I found the unit used a 25-pin male/male connector.  So, I bought a DB25 cable for file transfer, but the cable didn't have all 25 pins connected, like the unit required.  I got lots of errors when using the wrong kind of cord.  The power was on, the GBX was looking good, but it wouldn't communicate.  All the stores were closed by this point , os I resorted to building a male/male DB25 adapter cable using 2 feet of 8-conductor phone line, some side cutters, a soldering iron, and  a pair of old DB25 connector heads.  After the new cable was built, everything worked just fine.  Just another note-  I bought 2 other cables, and neither of them worked, so I'd suggest that you build your own cable if you have the skill (ie. you know which end of a soldering iron to hold, and know how to put 25 wires into 50 holes).  Maybe it's just their way of showing how

This unit included at least as much as it needed, and went a little farther.  The only problem was the initial hookup if you have the wrong kind of cable.
 
 

Quality of design/components:

High quality stuff here.  Intel 8-megabyte dual-bit-per-cell flash ROM chip.  Fast data transfer.  CE certification.  Atomic purple casing for both cartridge and GBX.  Great job of circuit boards.  Nothing but the best.  I can't think of much else to say but good work!
 

Ease of use:

Load the software, read the documentation, and if you've got the right port settings and a compatable DB25 connector, things work right away.  Once again not a hard thing to judge.  I was very happy with the results.  But please, remember that you absolutely NEED a proper 25-pin connector, not a lap-link or an old printer cable (they only have about half of the pins connected internally).  You can spend about $30 buying one, or scavange the parts from stuff that's lying around and build one yourself (like I did).
 
 

Features:

Cartridge has full MBC1 MBC2 and MBC5 compatability, which means pretty much every GB game ever made would run on this cartridge if it were uploaded.  Onscreen file access is easy, and loaded with features with a special menu hack.  This hack supports special palettes for non color games, and the ability to run a monochrome GB game in 2x speed mode.  Very cool indeed.  The GBX can be powered by battery (6 AAA) or by 9V power supply, which is a nice option near a PC that's choked with cables.  Software tools included have a number of great feature-loaded programs (upload/download games, upload/download save RAM, upload/download GB camera RAM, etc...)

Bung/Mr.Flash really went all out in making this thing feature loaded and 100% compatible with pre-existing hardware, as well as making it easy enough for the average Joe to use.
 
 

The last word:

What I liked:
Quality of electronics, ease of set up, ease of use, large capacity of the memory card, low battery consumption, ability to play software you make yourself on a real Gameboy/Color, ability to upload/download SRAM for GB Camera.  Pretty much everything.

What I hated:
Constantly yelling "WHY WON'T MY @$^!@#$ CABLE WORK!!!!".  But even then, I fixed it.

Scores:

What's in the box:  4.5 / 5 (losing a half point for the bulge in the packaging)
Quality: 5 / 5
Ease of Use: 4.5 / 5 (make sure you have a REAL DB-25 cable)
Features: 5 / 5

Cool Factor (not counted in total):  5 / 5

Total: 24 / 25
Rating:  96%