Global Positioning Game System

Good gracious! Here’s a clever chap – he’s made his Nintendo DS into a Global Positioning System, complete with maps!

The ‘Pass Me’ chip is a device normally used for running homebrew applications on the DS (it plugs in to the DS card slot). Using this, he’s connected it in turn to a Lassen iQ GPS module. Then, he’s downloaded maps from Google Maps onto a GBA flash cartridge. Apparently there’s a formula you can use to convert your GPS position into a point on the Google map. We can’t believe we never thought of it ourselves!

He also says that in theory, if you cracked the DS WiFi (still something of a Holy Grail in DS modification land) you’d be able to download the maps directly rather than using the Compact Flash cartridge.

What’s the most adventurous thing you’ve ever done with your DS? We tried to put an original Game Boy cartridge in ours once, but it felt like it might break it, so we got scared and stopped.