What hardware tools do official developers use ?

The Intelligent Systems Debugger (US$4000) or Emulator (US$3000) are the most common hardware development tools. They connect to the SCSI port of an IBM-PC and allow downloading 8mbit files in just a few seconds to a GB or GBC. They both support development for projects as large as 64mbits. A special cart with a cable connecting the cart to the ISAS hardware is used to allow running the downloaded program on a GB. Both of these units also allow programming Nintendo flash carts. (These flash carts are only available to licensed developers as well.)

Other official developers use a gb emulator program that runs on an IBM-PC to do most testing and occasionally test their programs on the real GB hardware by using a flash cart.