The Analogue Pocket always turns heads: first because it was the most authentic Game Boy replacement ever announced, and then because it took an extraordinary amount of time to finally come out. But it turned out it did, and it was very good. For some, its biggest drawback was that it required old, increasingly expensive physical cartridges to play games, as it (for the most part) couldn’t just conveniently load ROM files. The Pocket really needed what the kids call a “jailbreak,” at least if it was going to fulfill the fantasy of being the ultimate Game Boy device. Today, that jailbreak just slipped in the side door. A little tidbit: When Pocket finally launched last December, it had only the most bare-bones operating system and didn’t have many of the system’s much-promised features, like save states that supported your game progress. (Analogue also didn’t release the originally announced Atari Lynx, Neo Geo Pocket, or TurboGrafx-16 cart adapters.) Early adopters, happy as they were to have their uber Game Boys with beautiful retina-quality displays, realized they would be quite some time before the device in their hands runs out. The same was true for aspiring programmers who wanted to make the new engine do fun new things. The Pocket contains two field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), which developers can reconfigure to access another device’s hardware. They’re great for simulating classic video game systems, and hobbyist developers could certainly get a lot of use out of them, perhaps by developing new FPGA cores—that is, software that tells FPGAs how to configure themselves—to simulate even more consoles. But this feature was also delayed. Fast forward to today. At 8:01 am PT Analogue has finally released a new version of Pocket’s Analogue OS. Today’s Analogue OS v1.1 beta adds the long-promised “Library” and “Memories” features. The former displays information about the games you import, the latter is basically save states. Version 1.1 also finally opened up the system to developers, under the name “openFPGA”. As an example of what hobbyists can achieve with newly unlocked FPGAs, Analogue released an openFPGA core that emulated Spacewar!, one of the first video games. Net. And that was it. A nice and necessary update, but it wasn’t the jailbreak many were expecting either. See you in six months! (Actually, Analogue is Analog, probably eight.) But then. Three hours later, at 11:23 AM, a Github account called Spiritualized1997, created less than 24 hours earlier, uploaded a repository called openFPGA-GBA. a minute later, he uploaded another called openFPGA-GB-GBC. Each repository contained a single downloadable file. “To play Game Boy Advance on your Pocket, follow these instructions,” said the instructions that came with the GBA repository, outlining five steps to install a GBA v1.0.0 Spiritualized1997 kernel on your Pocket and run ROM files. The second repository offered similar instructions, but for a kernel running Game Boy and Game Boy Color ROMs. So to recap: Today Analogue Pocket gained the ability to run third-party FPGA cores. Three hours and 22 minutes later, Pocket’s two most popular supported handhelds mysteriously received new third-party FPGA cores that could do the thing everyone wanted Pocket to do since it launched: load games from stock ROMs to a microSD card. Is this… is this jailbreak after all? Yes, yes it is. Or rather, the jailbreak has finally begun, because today’s two Nintendo v1.0.0 cores are just the first wave of what will clearly be a bigger, more sustained release. So what’s going on here? Who is Spiritualized1997, and how the hell did they develop and release GBA and GB/GBC kernels for the Analogue Pocket just three or so hours after today’s release of the Analogue OS v1.1 beta that made such things possible? Why is the account so new? Most observers’ theory – which, to be clear, Kotaku can’t confirm – is that Spiritualized1997 is Kevin “Kevtris” Horton, a legend in the emulation scene and the FPGA emulation guru behind all of its game engines FPGA-based analogs. It has worked on the Analogue NT mini (which played 8-bit NES games), the Super NT (SNES games), the Mega Sg (Sega Genesis games) and of course the Pocket. Kevtris checks in on the popular Classic Gaming Discord today about 40 minutes after uploading the two unexpected FPGA cores. Screenshot: Kotaku Horton has a history (you’re thinking of a Dr. Seuss book now) of releasing unofficial “jailbreak” firmware for Analogue Co. consoles. which he helped develop, starting in 2017 when he uploaded the first jailbreak firmware for the NT mini. “The Core Store is officially open for business!” wrote on the AtariAge forum, referring to the ability to create NT mini run games from a variety of systems, when until then he had only played Nintendo 8-bit games loaded with physical cartridges. In case that left any doubt, he added, “Yeah, that means it’s running ROM now!” And so it has gone for all analog consoles since. Horton became a bit more discreet after the NT mini jailbreak, instead releasing his jailbreak firmwares through intermediaries such as emulation scene mover-and-shaker Smokemonster. But people in the scene, with a wink and a nod, understand where these popular pieces of hardware-enhancing software really come from. (Previous analog consoles were closed platforms, so who else could make them?) That’s why many took it for granted that the great Analogue Pocket hardware would be freed up to play games from ROM files. It’s been eight months, but today’s Spiritualized1997 surprise FPGA cores are pretty much what Pocket owners wanted, just in a slightly different form than usual — discrete FPGA cores loadable via Pocket’s new openFPGA feature. This made this “jailbreak” seem a little more subtle than usual. This is not a firmware replacement, just alternative cores from the microSD card. The end result is exactly the same, though. But again, this is just the beginning of a larger jailbreak process that will take place in the coming months. After all, the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance are just three of the handhelds that people want to play on the Pocket, not to mention people asking for it to support TV-based consoles like the Genesis and the SNES. The Spiritualized1997 FPGA cores, both at just version 1.0.0, are also missing a few features that the official Pocket embedded cores enjoy, most notably screen filters. These and other improvements are coming. the missing filters are obviously just because the openFPGA API is still immature. Spiritualized1997, who just joined Github yesterday, is a very helpful person. Screenshot: Kotaku Spiritualized1997, whoever he is, is also quite active on Reddit. One user complained about the lack of a Sega Game Gear core, to which Spiritualized1997 replied, “coming soon”. This apparently supernaturally helpful person also released an 80MB file containing 6,959 Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, and Game Gear title screen images that have, wouldn’t you know it, the very special file format that Pocket’s new “Library” has . attribute expects. So now you know how to make your library look beautiful. “This is fantastic! Pocket is finally waking up from its deep slumber,” said one Reddit user in response to news of the two new FPGA cores. “I haven’t activated mine [in] months!” “Today was a roller coaster.” said another. “Regards, thank you!” So while the heavens didn’t part and there wasn’t a flashing “jailbreak is here!” light sign, make no mistake, on July 29, 2022 the Analogue Pocket finally got the core features its owners have been wanting since December. But this jailbreak is not a one time thing. this is slow and steady, and now that the pump is primed, more ROM-friendly cores will come over time. The Game Gear first, apparently. Kotaku reached out to Analogue Co. for comments. At the end of today’s announcement of Analogue OS v1.1, the company tweeted: “Analogue does not endorse or support the unauthorized use or distribution of copyrighted or other proprietary material.”
