Last month the Raspberry Pi Zero W launched. It reminded us just how small a complete PC can be, and now the Zero board is the brains behind what counts as the smallest Game Boy ever created.
Officially, the smallest Game Boy ever released was the Game Boy Micro. However, an unofficial version of the Nintendo handheld makes the Micro look huge in comparison.
The "Game Boy Zero, but smaller" is the creation of Peter Barker, who goes by the name moosepr on the Hackaday website. You may remember the Game Boy Zero was created last year and looks very much like the original.
Barker is a big fan of retro gaming, but "not overly fond of 'rats nest' wires," so he decided to make a device for playing Game Boy games that was also "as small as possible." What he ended up with is a handheld capable of playing Game Boy games (and many other retro games) that's roughly the same size as an original Game Boy cartridge.
The reason this tiny Game Boy is possible is the existence of the Raspberry Pi Zero (or Zero W), which Barker combined with a 2.2-inch LCD sporting a resolution of 320-by-240, and a rechargeable battery. For user input, he used a couple of 5-way tactile switches rather than attempting to recreate the buttons found on a Game Boy.
The software running on this Game Boy is RetroPie, which allows any Raspberry Pi to be turned into a retro-gaming machine. So while this device was created to play Game Boy games, it can also run Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, NES, and a host of games from other retro systems. The only limit here being the performance available from a Pi Zero board.
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All the components Barker used for his Game Boy build are readily available and the RetroPie software is free. There's even a Hackaday post with build instructions if you decide to create your own. What this project is crying out for, however, is a case and even a cartridge slot on the back. Yes, that would make it much thicker, but also able to play original games, not just ROMs.
Battery life isn't discussed in detail, but the unit uses around 200 milliamps of power to function. Barker says that even hooking up a little 400mAh drone battery will give you 2 hours of play time.
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