game-and-watch-patch VS game-and-watch-backup

That being said, if you want to triple boot the device, Brian's patch explains how to do that here. This would probably be the best option since you want to keep the original firmware.

Which part exactly are you not sure about, flashing the firmwares or installing the chip? The flashing part is actually really simple, The commands are fully laid out here

If you plan to keep the stock original games you'll only have around 1MB of free space left on the Zelda unit. You can help free up more space as mentioned here.

All u need is already on the GitHub of each thing u need. The backup thingy is the same for both Mario and Zelda. The retro go setup (and CFW to have both the stock firmware and retro go at once) have a section for Zelda at the end too

I note that I am on a virtual machine with Ubuntu 22.04 and a Stlink Nucleo-F446RE. NOTE: My username on Ubuntu is ed and I have installed in the Documents folder the arm-gcc-none-eabi files. 1. !! be sure to have made a backup of your G&W with your original chip and to have done at least the first 4 steps !!. See ghidraninja's Git -> https://github.com/ghidraninja/game-and-watch-backup 2. Make a git clone of the G&W Patch and G&W Retro Go pages -> https://github.com/BrianPugh/game-and-watch-patch -> https://github.com/kbeckmann/game-and-watch-retro-go 3. It may be useful to install these dependencies: -> pip3 install -r requirements.txt -> make download_sdk

I think you can search youtube for the tutorials, but don’t follow them exactly, because most of them do not quite know how to do soldering XD. If you have a hot air gun it will be much easier, but it is still doable with solder iron. I suggest you to desolder the speaker from the board and remove the board from the case before doing anything. You can test and flash the ROM without reconnecting the board to display. You can flash the ROM with a pi or st-link adapter. I’m using a st-link adapter and I suggest to do so. It is a lot more stable and faster than using pi. Here are all the useful links of software that I’ve used. Backup and Unlock the G&W, do it before any hardware mod https://github.com/ghidraninja/game-and-watch-backup Patch original game so launch retro-go with SET+Left https://github.com/BrianPugh/game-and-watch-patch Orignal Retrogo from G&W https://github.com/kbeckmann/game-and-watch-retro-go Forked version that support cover art (I’m using this) https://github.com/olderzeus/game-and-watch-retro-go Convert MAME G&W games to Retrogo, you can download G&W games from any MAME archive. And google “Game and watch artwork” for the artkworks, you should able to find a google drive sharing folder https://github.com/bzhxx/LCD-Game-Shrinker

All u need is already on the GitHub of each thing u need. The backup thingy is the same for both Mario and Zelda. The retro go setup (and CFW to have both the stock firmware and retro go at once) have a section for Zelda at the end too

I did it all on an M1 Mac. I followed the README here: https://github.com/ghidraninja/game-and-watch-backup

I note that I am on a virtual machine with Ubuntu 22.04 and a Stlink Nucleo-F446RE. NOTE: My username on Ubuntu is ed and I have installed in the Documents folder the arm-gcc-none-eabi files. 1. !! be sure to have made a backup of your G&W with your original chip and to have done at least the first 4 steps !!. See ghidraninja's Git -> https://github.com/ghidraninja/game-and-watch-backup 2. Make a git clone of the G&W Patch and G&W Retro Go pages -> https://github.com/BrianPugh/game-and-watch-patch -> https://github.com/kbeckmann/game-and-watch-retro-go 3. It may be useful to install these dependencies: -> pip3 install -r requirements.txt -> make download_sdk

Oh it’s a bit of work, First get a game and watch, Zelda one is better because it has 4mb flash memory & Mario has one mb. Then get an stlink or jtag Open the case and connect the debug pins to run scripts to unlock it from read only to read write mode from stacksmashing git hub page. Once that is done you can install custom firmware from kbeckmans GitHub page with your gb,gbc,nes,SMS,gg Roms to the game and watch and enjoy.

I think you can search youtube for the tutorials, but don’t follow them exactly, because most of them do not quite know how to do soldering XD. If you have a hot air gun it will be much easier, but it is still doable with solder iron. I suggest you to desolder the speaker from the board and remove the board from the case before doing anything. You can test and flash the ROM without reconnecting the board to display. You can flash the ROM with a pi or st-link adapter. I’m using a st-link adapter and I suggest to do so. It is a lot more stable and faster than using pi. Here are all the useful links of software that I’ve used. Backup and Unlock the G&W, do it before any hardware mod https://github.com/ghidraninja/game-and-watch-backup Patch original game so launch retro-go with SET+Left https://github.com/BrianPugh/game-and-watch-patch Orignal Retrogo from G&W https://github.com/kbeckmann/game-and-watch-retro-go Forked version that support cover art (I’m using this) https://github.com/olderzeus/game-and-watch-retro-go Convert MAME G&W games to Retrogo, you can download G&W games from any MAME archive. And google “Game and watch artwork” for the artkworks, you should able to find a google drive sharing folder https://github.com/bzhxx/LCD-Game-Shrinker

I followed the guide in this GitHub to do the initial backup and unlock: https://github.com/ghidraninja/game-and-watch-backup

You can flash custom firmware using this thing, but given that you need a genuine ST-Link programmer (starts from $25) and everything else that goes on with it, including a limited amount of memory, then it is not worth the hassle, I think.

If you're having trouble getting the 16MB image to flash correctly there could be a few possible causes. Firstly, I'd go back and attempt to restore the original firmware using game-and-watch-backup's 5_restore.sh script (https://github.com/ghidraninja/game-and-watch-backup). If that works, you can assume the flash chip is correctly soldered/working and turn your attention to other parts of the process. In my experience, lowering the adapter speed helps, as well as using short, soldered wires for attaching to the debug port.