Is it possible to flash GBA carts?

[satoshi_matrix]

Hey all, I'm just wondering if anyone knows if its possible to flash GBA games like can be done on the Famicom or Super Famicom. Now that the fantastic Mother 3 fan translation is finished I'm wondering if a Japanese Mother 3 cartridge could be flashed with the English translation, resulting in Mother 3 English on a standalone cart without the use of a GBA flash cartridge.

And if so, can anyone here actually do that?

[nurd]

I dont think so. I've tried doing that, but it didn't work D:

[L___E___T]

Actually, I'm surprised english translation pirates haven't appeared on ebay yet - surely it's a matter of time.

[Pikkon]

Im pretty sure you can only flash official dev gba carts and not retail ones.

[133MHz]

GBA cartridges have ROMs just like any other old school cart. You could theoretically replace said ROM with a Flash ROM, but keep in mind how small GBA cartridges are - every piece is miniaturized and the chips are no exception. They're so small and flat and their pins are so minuscule and so close together (fractions of a millimeter) that a regular soldering iron won't do any good. You'd need a SMD rework station (VERY expensive) or a heat gun and a REALLY steady hand to replace chips in GBA carts, and you'll probably need to do some rewiring, which means that your soldering skills must have millimetric precision.

In conclusion, while it's theoretically possible, it's really difficult at a practical level.

[UglyJoe]

My suggestion would be to find a Mother 3 cart and a GBA flash cart.  Gut both of the carts and find some way of cramming the flash cart guts into the Mother 3 cart.  Bam.  Flashable Mother 3 cart.

[133MHz]

Practical UglyJoe to the rescue!

How'd you remove the flash cart's menu screen? Or would you use a small capacity, one game flashcart?
Also, do the small ones support SRAM/EEPROM saves?

[UglyJoe]

I haven't shopped for them in a long while, but when I did get one years ago, they pretty much all had save abilities.  The real-time clock feature was the one that was usually missing (although many did have it).

I know with my cart, you didn't have to use their menu.  You could just flash a single game onto it if you wanted to (which I needed to do for 256Mb games).

The key would be to find a small one, though.  I know my flashcart was slightly fatter than a regular cart.  It didn't stick out, but it was a very snug fit.  I really doubt I could get it all into a standard case (not without some careful dremel work, anyway).