Abe Haskins' Game.Work Is a Framework Mainboard-Powered Retro-Themed Games Console

Maker Abe Haskins has created a games console that looks like it could be straight out of the 1980s, complete with its interchangeable games cartridges — but which is powered by the Framework Mainboard single-board computer (SBC), giving it some serious power.

"As beautiful as modern game consoles and computers are, there's just always been something that stuck with me about the devices from the late 80s, early 90s," Haskins explains by way of background to the project. "They were always plasticky, a lot of times they were beige, the cartridges had a feel in your hand — it was just really iconic, and this project is my love letter to that type of design and and that type of device."

The machine itself is dubbed the Game.Work, not because it combines play and work but because it's built atop the Framework Mainboard — the single-board computer which originally launched as the inner workings of the Framework laptop. It's hardly recognizable as such, though: Haskin's console adopts a two-tone beige and grey finish, looking somewhat yellowed with "age," and a physical cartridge system inspired by that of the TurboGrafx-16.

"[The case is] made up of four 3D-printed components, two acrylic boards which are used to hold the motherboard in place and also give a mounting point for the 3D-printed components, then we have a metal back plate, and then we'll add some LEDs, some rubber feet, a button, make it all feel a bit more varied so it doesn't just feel 3D printed," Haskins explains.

"'So it doesn't just feel 3D printed.' These words seemed simple when I said them," Haskins continues, "and when I dreamed of this project the idea of polishing a piece to the point where it did not look like a 3D-printed piece of plastic seemed possible — but now after countless hours of sanding and painting I have realized just how hard it is to get the finish I wanted."

A slot in the casing provides a place to put the game cartridges, PCBs with chunky edge connectors and custom-printed color labels — which, as with the games of the 1980s, may not accurately reflect the quality of the graphics you can expect when you load up a title. Here, as with the main console, the retro styling of the hardware hides a very modern secret: the cartridges serve as breakout boards for a microSD Card, mating with a compatible reader hidden inside the console's cartridge slot.

Aside from making USB ports accessible for wired controllers and setting up a power button, the remaining challenge was in reproducing the status LEDs of a vintage games console — here achieved by using an Arduino board to control the lights according to the status of the underlying software. As each cartridge is inserted, the game loads automatically — "most operating systems don't like that," Haskins explains, "because there's viruses that people put on flash drives" — just like a "real" games console.

The project is detailed in full in the video above, while 3D-printable STLs and design files have been released on GitHub under an unspecified open-source license.