

New York City photographed with the Game Boy Camera in 2000 - smacktoward
http://www.ironicsans.com/2014/05/new_york_city_in_2000_photogra.html

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seryoiupfurds
The linked colour pictures are also pretty neat.

[http://www.ironicsans.com/2007/09/idea_color_photos_with_the...](http://www.ironicsans.com/2007/09/idea_color_photos_with_the_gam.html)

~~~
barbs
Awww man...I've got a gameboy camera lying around as well, and I have that Mad
Catz cable adapter he's talking about, but I could never get it to work :(

Also, his method reminds me of these old Russian photographs:

[http://petapixel.com/2014/03/10/incredible-color-
photographs...](http://petapixel.com/2014/03/10/incredible-color-photographs-
of-early-20th-century-russia/)

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idoco
Neil young's Silver & Gold album cover was shot by Neil's daughter Amber with
a Game Boy Camera.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_%26_Gold_(Neil_Young_alb...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_%26_Gold_\(Neil_Young_album\))

~~~
ssully
Wow, that is actually really cool.

I remember seeing ad's for this camera when it came up, but never actually saw
a picture from it until recently. I really love that weird tech like this
existed.

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userbinator
Great demonstration of "toy level camera tech" 14 years ago!

The interesting thing about the sensor in these things (Mitsubishi M64282FP)
is that it has an _analog_ output, so it's capable of much higher bit depth
than in Nintendo's implementation of it. There are various other (mostly robot
vision) projects using it that you can find on the Internet, and you'll see
that the images are far less pixelated.

I also think it's rather amazing how much the tech has progressed - 15 years
ago, the cost of a 128 x 123 (there's 5 black lines probably for BLC) - 16KP -
monochrome array fixed-focus sensor module would be around the same as a 5MP
AF colour module today, of the type used in smartphones.

~~~
curiousgeorgio
Sounds interesting. Can you explain how a higher bit depth is used to produce
images with less pixelation (higher resolution)?

~~~
teraflop
It's not about resolution. Part of the reason those images look so pixelated
is because they're quantized down to 2 bits per pixel: you only get white,
light gray, dark gray, and black. Any intermediate shades have to be
represented by dithering, which is what creates that stippled, checkered
appearance.

If the images had the same resolution but higher bit depth, you wouldn't be
able to make out much more detail, but the images would be a lot smoother and
less blocky-looking.

EDIT: I used today's Wikipedia featured picture as an example.

Original:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kumar_Anish.jpg](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kumar_Anish.jpg)

256x256, 8 bits per pixel:
[http://i.imgur.com/YVIS2g3.png](http://i.imgur.com/YVIS2g3.png)

256x256, 2 bits per pixel:
[http://i.imgur.com/iTFslZx.png](http://i.imgur.com/iTFslZx.png)

256x256, 2 bits per pixel, with dithering:
[http://i.imgur.com/LnlmORI.png](http://i.imgur.com/LnlmORI.png)

~~~
robert-boehnke
I imagine this is because the original Gameboy only had a 2 bit color palette.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
Right. The Game Boy Color changed that, but it wasn't black-and-white.

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The_Fox
The subway speeding past photo is interesting- the door is clearly slanted to
one side. Is this an artifact of the camera scanning line-by-line relatively
slowly? Or something else?

~~~
ygra
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_shutter](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolling_shutter)

Common on certain types of digital cameras today as well (especially smaller
ones like mobile phones and P&S cameras).

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servowire
Wow. I remember that cam.

Fun to do. Put one of those pics on your screen and walk back a few meters.
For example the picture of the guy in the subway sleeping. You'll notice the
details start appearing because your brain is filling in the details.

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minikomi
A music video created with a gameboy camera:
[http://vimeo.com/19868821](http://vimeo.com/19868821)

It's also worth noting that the gameboy camera also contained a very weird and
limited sequencer called trippy-H, which you accessed by first completing an
objective (take so many photos or make an animation or something).. and then
shooting the right thing in the shooting game.

Here's a demo of it:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SDQ7vF5CIQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SDQ7vF5CIQ)

I loved that the gameboy camera had a ton of completely hidden weirdness (pre-
internet!) which you found out and shared with your friends.

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nsxwolf
This reminds me of another cool toy camera, the PXL-2000 - which recorded
digital video onto a compact audio cassette tape.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PXL-2000](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PXL-2000)

~~~
Patrick_Devine
I went to a PXL-2000 film festival about 15 years ago in Vancouver which was
absolutely brilliant. It's amazing how creative people get when forced to deal
with constraints.

Speaking of constraints, the camera apparently had a problem with its RF
filter, which resulted in a lot of static when you were recording to the audio
tape. Someone figured out you could hack in your own RCA video out connector,
so most of the films shot with the camera have been modded to get a better
picture. Here's a link on how to mod one:
[http://users.speakeasy.net/~joem/Pxl/guide.html](http://users.speakeasy.net/~joem/Pxl/guide.html)

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greggman
Here's a web app that will "gameboyify" a photo

[http://www.tabletop-pixel.com/retroizer/](http://www.tabletop-
pixel.com/retroizer/)

~~~
simonlebo
[http://i.imgur.com/0IAaSYp.png](http://i.imgur.com/0IAaSYp.png)

------
t__r
Quality doesnt seem to be that much different from the first ever digital
camera, the cromemco cyclops
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromemco_CYCLOPS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cromemco_CYCLOPS)).
Judged by the few examples that can be found via Google images, that is.

Incidentally, that camera used rather interesting technology. Its sensor was a
regular CMOS ram chip with the opaque cover replaced by a transparent one.
Bits would flip back from 1 to 0 due to the light projected onto it.

------
blueskin_
I had one of those back in the day. It wasn't just a camera, it also had some
amazingly rudimentary photo editing capabilities, which were fun, as well as
lots of amazingly weird games.

If you'll excuse the Cracked link, there are also some weird easter eggs:
[http://www.cracked.com/article_19332_7-creepy-video-game-
eas...](http://www.cracked.com/article_19332_7-creepy-video-game-easter-eggs-
youll-wish-were-never-found_p2.html)

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snissn
I've been wondering for a long time why Nintendo never went ahead and made a
smart phone. This really cool blog post sort of twisted the knife to me about
their possible missed opportunity.

------
dang
Url changed from [http://www.designboom.com/art/game-boy-camera-
photographs-05...](http://www.designboom.com/art/game-boy-camera-
photographs-05-13-2014/), which pointed to something that pointed to this.

Submitters: HN prefers original sources. Please check what you post for cases
where it's just pointing to something else.

~~~
KnightHawk3
The current URL is far more interesting with its links to his colour
photographs.

~~~
ja27
I've been following his blog for a few years now. He's done some other really
neat stuff like histogram work
([http://www.ironicsans.com/2007/09/idea_the_histogram_as_the_...](http://www.ironicsans.com/2007/09/idea_the_histogram_as_the_imag.html))
and sort of an inverse Tetris
([http://www.ironicsans.com/2009/01/i_wrote_it_you_made_it_mon...](http://www.ironicsans.com/2009/01/i_wrote_it_you_made_it_montris.html)).
Then there are the inventor profiles
([http://www.ironicsans.com/interview/](http://www.ironicsans.com/interview/)).

~~~
voltagex_
A script for generating images with self-similar histograms (read the first
article!) - [http://www.joshmillard.com/2007/10/04/retro-histo-making-
an-...](http://www.joshmillard.com/2007/10/04/retro-histo-making-an-image-fit-
your-histogram/)

~~~
jack-r-abbit
The histogram work is awesome. I know of some people that would love this for
crypto-puzzles.

