# travisgoodspeed/gbrom-tutorial

Tutorial for extracting the GameBoy ROM from photographs of the die.

Repository: https://github.com/travisgoodspeed/gbrom-tutorial
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/gbrom-tutorial
License Family: other
Last push: 2026-08-17T18:42:58+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 74/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 98, release rhythm 35, longevity 90
- inputs: {"age_days": 1262, "days_push": 16, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases, no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1154, forks 29 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:47.738456+00:00)

## What it is
A step-by-step tutorial for recovering the GameBoy boot ROM from photographs of a decapsulated chip's die, using MaskRomTool to extract bits from via patterns. It walks through photography, bit extraction, and producing a usable ROM file.

## Use cases
- extract a gameboy boot rom from die photos
- learn mask rom recovery from chip photographs
- read bits from microscope images of a rom
- dump a gameboy cpu rom without a cartridge
- learn hardware reverse engineering of mask roms
- convert die photographs into a binary rom file

## When to choose
- you want a hands-on introduction to mask ROM bit extraction
- you have die photographs of a via ROM and need to recover its contents
- you want to learn MaskRomTool with a small, forgiving example target

## When to avoid
- you need to dump ROMs from cartridges or flash chips
- you need a general-purpose ROM extraction tool rather than a tutorial
- your target chip requires delayering or bit staining not covered here

## Facets
- artifact type: learning-resource
- maturity: active
- function: reverse-engineering, image-processing, developer-tools
- domain: hardware, tutorials, reverse-engineering, gaming-tools
- platform: cross-platform, cli
- tags: mask-rom, gameboy, chip-decapsulation, microscopy, rom-recovery, tutorial, desktop

## Member repositories
- travisgoodspeed/gbrom-tutorial (main) score 74

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:47.738456+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:33:24.002836+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/travisgoodspeed/gbrom-tutorial (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:47.738456+00:00, sha 80a336d323bb)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.