Game Boy Advance BIOS

Game Boy Advance BIOS
Developer: Nintendo Publishers: Nintendo (INT), Daiwon C&A (KR), iQue (CN) Released in JP: March 21, 2001 Released in US: June 11, 2001 Released in EU: June 22, 2001 Released in AU: June 22, 2001 Released in KR: June 2001 Released in CN: June 8, 2004 (iQue Game Boy Advance) This console has unused code. This console has hidden developer credits. This console has a prototype article This console has a prerelease article

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

The Game Boy Advance (GBA) was the third major iteration of the Game Boy line. 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) in addition to its own games. Due to hardware simplification, this compatibility would be removed in the later Game Boy Micro model, something which would carry over to the Nintendo DS and DS Lite).

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

Prototype Info

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.