To build one yourself, you will need:
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A GBA Mainboard.
These can be purchased at www.gameconsolerepair.com for $20 or pulled from a GBA console. A note on pulling your own out: The screwdriver comes free with purchase of a GBA Transverter. Another method I've seen around is filing two wings of a small phillips driver. Or you can get your board out with a combination of tiny flat screwdrivers, drilling and cursing like I did.A flash card.
No need to go apeshit on flashcards, we're getting using Smartmedia, remember. 128mbits is enough. No current game is over that. Try to use one of the newer ones that support both eeprom and sram saves. F2A cards come to mind. The one pictured is my FA Pro 128mbit card. It does sram, but no eeprom saves. Success-HK.com is a reliable asian pirate hardware company which still carries GBA flash.A "Game Wallet" SMC reader. And at least one SmartMedia Card
Shown here with a 128MB Smart Media card in both the clothed and unclothed state. Again, many places to buy it, I chose Success-HK.com. About $30 for the Game Wallet, and if you look around, it's about the same price for 128MB of smartmedia.Flashing (with verify) of 128mbits of data only takes about 190 seconds, so it's actually a significant speed increase over the old parallel writers.
Flashing from SMC
A GBA "Transverter".
Of the many GBA-To-TV products out there, this is the only one that has instructions out on the web to modify it to output RGB. About $30 and again, Success-HK.com Carries it. THIS SITE is where to find instructions for how to pull RGB out of it. (until I do it)A PSOne LCD Screen.
While this is the most $expensive$ part of the project, it's the most worth while. Psone monitors are 5" backlit TFT screens that even accept RGB signal. I can't think of a better way to view my gameboy. Some Type of controller, and a port(s) to connect it.
As you can see, I've chosen Neo Geo joysticks because I'm lazy. You can still connect other joysticks to it, but that's a lot more work. Check instructions page for more info.And you'll need a battery...
A big mofo. I haven't decided on this yet, I'm saving it for last. But I'm looking at generic sony infolithium clones. I'm shooting for 4 hours untethered playtime so I'm planning on spending about $100 on battery.
Buttons
Buttons, switches and assorted stuff to be saved for close to the end. We need a way to power it up, and some onboard controls to play it on the go.
A case
wood, vacuformed or injected plastic, resin prototyping, you decide--I haven't yet. Expect it to be $50-$100
Lastly, you need tools
Experienced game modders will have these already, it's time you caught up.
You'll need at least a cheap multimeter - try for digital
A soldering iron - 15w is pleanty, do not try using a soldering gun
solder, flux and wire. (cat 5e is a cheap way to get wire)
jewelers screwdrivers
Assloads of time, and/or a part time job to fund it all