Resources for making handheld gaming device

February 3, 2005 11:38 PM

I saw a cool microcontroller project on slashdot, and dredged up my old dream of making an open-source, open-spec competitor to the GameBoy. Surely somebody else out there is doing that kind of thing (not GameBoy programming, but making entirely different handheld game devices).

What's the best forum, resource, or website to pursue information about this kind of project?
posted by Emera Gratia to Technology (2 answers total)

It'd be nice, but you have a big roadblock in front of you: controlling your display. If you go generic, you have to get a soudn chip, a display device and a driver that you can interface to your CPU and that will drive up the cost. Whereas a company like Nintendo chooses a processor, a sound chip, a display and a driver chip and then pays the CPU manufacturer to integrate the the CPU, sound, and driver chips because they can afford to especially when the cost is amortized over several million chips.

The upside is that the proliferation of cellphones and PDAs are creating a secondary market for companies that want to make embedded systems set to go for handheld devices. For example, Motorola's Dragonball processors are 3.3V microcontrollers that are 68K based and can have built-in LCD drivers. You can find StrongARM chips that are doing the same thing.
posted by plinth at 6:21 AM on February 4, 2005

Emera- I'm pretty sure this will lead you to the path you're looking for. And maybe this.
posted by TuxHeDoh at 7:39 AM on February 4, 2005