GANGABOY V2.1 Readme File

0. Whats new?

Version 2.1 has the following new features:

• Saves state of windows NT patch to registry

• Added menu options for flash/backup rom

• Added menu options to erase rom/sram

• Prints message before flashing multi-rom

• Option to lock comments to prevent accidental change.

• Fixed bug which stops two similarlly named games being added to multi-build

• Double click on games to add to multi build

• New button/menu option for multibuild

• Drag game to exchanger window to quickly flash

• Right click on game lists to select view style as in windows explorer. Added option to set emulator filename, so other emulators can be used.

Version 2.0 no longer needs gbt.exe, as it has the communications software built in. This should solve the problems people have been having getting the program to talk to their GBExchanger. Also Windows NT support has been improved.

1. What is it?

GangaBoy is a utility to manage collections of Gameboy roms. It is also a front end for the GBExchanger / Doctor GB SmartCard which are made by Bung Enterprises. It also has SRAM management features, and an interface to the DBoy gameboy emulator.

2. What do I need to run it?

You need the following files:

All these files except dboy.exe are included in the archive.

3. The directory list

The directory list allows you to select which directory to search for Gameboy games. It picks out all files with the extensions .gb or .gbc, and catalogs them into the game window.

4. The game window

The game window displays all gameboy games in the selected directory. It displays the following details about each game:

The icon is coloured depending on if the game is monochrome, supergameboy or gameboy color compatable.

To sort the games by a column, click on the column header. To reverse sort, click again.

The filter edit box may be used to quickly filter the game list. For example, if you enter 'Mario' in the box, only games which have the word 'Mario' in the title are displayed. The filter is updated in real time as you type.

You can right-click the filter, to choose if it applies to the game name, or the comment, or both.

To enter/change a comment for a game, just edit the comment in the comment box under the game list.

Double click on a game to add it to the multi-rom builder.

Right click to change view style as per windows explorer.

5. The GBExchanger multi-rom builder

To build up a multi-rom game for flashing onto a DoctorGB flash card, drag each game you want included into the multi-builder window. A total of size used/size left is displayed.

If you want to flash just one game, drag just that game to the multi-builder.

If more than one game is in the multi-rom builder, it will automatically add the file GBPack10 as a header to the file, to make a menu for the multi-game pack.

A List of games can be saved so you can load it again later if you want to replace one game with another.

You can either flash the game straight away, or can save the multi-rom to disk for flashing later.

Click on the New button to clear the multi-builder.

6. The emulator

Drag a game to the emulator window to run an emulator with the game. This can be used to test a game before flashing. You must set the emulator file name in the options menu before you can use this feature.

7. The GBxExchanger

You can transfer roms and srams to/from the GBExchanger. You can select to save/load 1 bank at a time, or all at once for SRAM. You can choose to have the reader read the size of the rom from the game itself and back just that up, or you cn back up the entire flash card.

8. Windows NT support

The options menu has an option called 'Windows NT Patch'. What this does is call a special WINNT driver called GIVEIO.SYS which allows access to the parallel port under WinNT. This is now better than the last release, as it doesnt cause graphic corruption.

GIVEIO.SYS is available on my WinRip64 page, under the Nintendo 64 section.

For the NT Patch to work, the driver must be installed, and set to start automatically in the devices section of Control Panel.

9. Problems?

The program keeps a file called gbcache.ini in its executable directory. If this becomes corrupted, it is possible that GangaBoy will not load. If this is the case, just delete this file, and it will be re-built as needed.

If you have any other problems, please mail me, in particular if you cant get the program running at all.

CONTACTING ME

If you have any suggestions or comments about any of my programs, or discover a bug please drop me a line. I would especially like to hear from you if you can't get the program running at all...

You can e-mail me at: george@ganga.demon.co.uk

You can SMS me on +447979901569 if you have a Vodafone phone in the UK, or you know how to use a web gateway...