Electronic paper displays are game-changing pieces of technology and are some of the most visually comfortable screens out there. Even with backlighting, these panels do not cause eye strain. Also, the images or text remain legible even under direct sunlight, and the component draws ridiculously low amounts of power. Meanwhile. somebody just shared an interesting handheld concept based on the Game Boy.
For most of us who grew up during the heyday of portable game systems, Nintendo made a huge splash in 1989 with the launch of the Game Boy. Some of us can still remember unboxing one, sliding in a game cartridge, flicking the switch on, and seeing the iconic splash screen for the first time.
DSP Product Application Engineer Wenting Zhang intends to replicate the experience, albeit with a modern touch. His take on the retro handheld does not involve any tactile user interface except maybe for the power button. Instead, the device is a small slab that runs on an FPGA-based emulator (Peanut GBA).
Specifically, the dude behind this project uses an M5PaperS3. “It’s an ESP32-S3 dev kit shaped like a pocketable e-reader, featuring a 4.7″ 960×540 Eink touchscreen,” reads the official description. It’s no secret these types of screens typically have abysmal refresh rates. However, this bad boy here can reach 60 fps.
As such, the gameplay should feel just as immersive as the original. Of course, this took some behind-the-scenes tinkering to achieve. However, there’s a noteworthy caveat. Due to some hardware limitations, audio output is still being worked on. From a storage standpoint, the original Game Boy stored data on the cartridge. Zhang’s platform, on the other hand, will do so via a microSD card.
Learn MoreImages courtesy of Wenting Zhang/Hackster
