There's an FPGA handheld that looks perfect for playing GBA, but it's still in the crowdfunding phase

Submitted ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Moltz@lemmy.ml⁩ to ⁨retrogaming@lemmy.world⁩

https://guiltygamer.com/this-fpga-handheld-can-read-game-boy-carts-is-fully-open-source-and-hackable/

First-time poster, long-time reader. I created a site that isn’t monetized to report on interesting tech and gaming, covering news and reviews, and wanted to share this post as I’m a huge fan of retro gaming and would love to see the Game Bub succeed. Rest assured, although this may appear to be self-promotion, I’m not earning anything from the site; it is completely ad-free.

Back to the subject at hand. We already have a few portrait handhelds that can play physical Game Boy carts, but we still don’t have one that plays landscape. There are rumors that Modretro will make a GBA handheld, but so far, there’s no news on that front. In comes the Game Bub, which is still in crowdfunding, but it does appear a manufacturer has been secured. Hopefully the project finds enough funding to get made, cause I would love to add the Game Bub to my collection.

Not only is it open source, it can play physical carts, which is a big deal to collectors like me, as I prefer single carts over flash carts. Of course, it has an SD slot, so you won’t even need a flash cart if you don’t want to use one.

I can’t be alone in wanting to see this funded, right? We absolutely need an FPGA handheld with a 3:2 screen for GBA.

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Comments

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Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Does anyone else detect the faint smell of GPT in this post, or am I just jumping at shadows again?

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- Moltz@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Jumping for sure. Sucks everyone is so paranoid these days. Everything on the site is written and edited by humans, and I wrote this post on Lemmy.
  
  From what I can tell some key giveaways are excessive use of emdashes and emoji in lists. LinkedIn is a perfect example of everyone using AI.
  
  But yeah, I created my site in retaliation to all the slop out there, as I’m just as sick of it as everyone else, maybe moreso because it’s destroying the field I work in while decimating the careers of many friends.
  
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  - Cevilia@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Thanks for the candid reply.
    
    I utterly despise that it’s hard to tell the difference now.
    
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bufalo1973@piefed.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Why not use a Raspberry Pi Zero?

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- Goodlucksil@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Because that’s emulation. This is a FPGA. Like the Analogue Pocket
  
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  - bufalo1973@piefed.social ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Emulation of an ARM console on an ARM computer? And a FPGA is also kind of an emulation but on a lower level, IIRC.
    
    And if the "no emulation" part is about the SM83 or the PPU then maybe just an add-on card for the RPi can work. And cheaper.
    
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  - anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    If the outcome is the exact same, who cares?
    This is like golden audio cables but for retro gamers.
    
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Godort@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
What makes this better than the Analogue Poket?

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- Moltz@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  It’s all about the screen ratio. The Pocket is 10:9, same as the original Game Boy. This way all Game Boy and Game Boy Color games perfectly fit the screen. The Pocket can play GBA, sure, but GBA was 3:2, so it’s heavily letterboxed on the Pocket. The Game Bub is a 3:2 screen, while using similar underlying tech of FPGA. Basically, the Game Bub is the right landscape layout and right screen ratio to best play GBA games.
  
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  - Godort@lemmy.ca ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    huh, neat.
    
    I can see that being a draw for enough people to own both
    
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anton@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Why use a FPGA? For the price of the chip (113€) you could get an entire SBC that has more storage, voltage regulation and protection, 3.3V or 5V IO and linux.

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- rooster_butt@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Yeah I don’t get it either. I work in aviation and we use fpgas so we can do field upgrades since physical hw changes are not that common in the industry. None of these handhels look like they support fpga image updates. My only guess is that they dont sell enough volume to make ASICs due to economies of scale.
  
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- dukemirage@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Then you’re not in the target group.
  
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  - Robin@lemmy.world ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    Can someone explain to me who the target group is tho? I understand FPGAs have a larger potential of emulating hardware fast. But it’s not like the chip designs for these old consoles are open source. So FPGAs are usually not cycle accurate either.
    
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wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Neat. But crowdsourcing is just theft with extra steps. It’s called a bank loan.

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- Moltz@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Were it a shithead company like Ubisoft running a crowdfunding campaign, I would heartily agree. But using crowd sourcing for its intended purpose, I’d say it’s less so. Not everyone can just go out and get a loan for $100K to manufacture an open-source handheld. No bank is signing up for that. Really, I’d be a lot more skeptical if they didn’t already have a manu lined up. Sure, crowdsourcing can be risky to back, but I’ve also bought all kinds of stuff off the shelf that was absolute junk at the end of the day. Purchasing things comes with risks, some more than others. You just gotta weigh if the purchase is a risk you’re willing to take.
  
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