An ESP32 Powers This Game Boy

Omer Hasanov's modern take on the Game Boy is powered by an ESP32, and it can play NES and Master System games as well.

Nick Bild
9 days agoGaming
This ESP32-based handheld can emulate many consoles (📷: Omer Hasanov)

The Nintendo Game Boy may have been a simple system technologically, but in many ways it is that simplicity that rocketed the console to over 100 million units sold. With hundreds of addictive games like Tetris available that anyone can understand and pick up to play for a few minutes here and there, the Game Boy still has a large fan base, despite being over 35 years old.

Fans are still using that same basic Game Boy design to create and innovate to this day. Take Omer Hasanov, for example, who wanted to design a Game Boy-like handheld with a modern twist. And fortunately for us, he documented the process in a recent video so that we can all play along at home. Rather than a Sharp SM83 processor with 8KB of RAM and a grayscale display, Hasanov added in some big upgrades so that the device can play a wider range of games.

The build is not especially challenging — it consists mostly of commercial development boards and add-on modules. Although the ESP32-WROOM development board Hasanov had on hand did not have enough RAM, so the ESP32 was removed and replaced with an ESP32-WROVER module with 8MB of PSRAM. This board was paired with a 3.2-inch color TFT LCD display with a 320x240-pixel resolution.

This base was wired to an SD card reader shield for loading games, a battery charger and voltage regulation module, and an external DAC for generating sound. Power was supplied by a rechargeable 18650 Li-ion battery. Standard push buttons were used for the controls. The hardware was all fitted into an appropriately chunky 3D-printed case.

With the hardware design worked out, all that was left to do was fire up an ESP32-compatible emulator and play some classic games. Hasanov went with the well-known Retro-Go platform, which makes it possible to not only emulate the Game Boy, but also the NES, Master System, Game Boy Color, and more.

Of course nothing to do with electronics ever works perfectly the first time, so Hasanov had plenty of debugging to do. One of the biggest problems had to do with the choice of SD cards, of all things. Be sure to check out the full video for some tips that will help you to avoid the same pitfalls.

Nick Bild
R&D, creativity, and building the next big thing you never knew you wanted are my specialties.
Latest articles
Sponsored articles
Related articles
Get our weekly newsletter when you join Hackster.
Latest articles
Read more
Related articles