The Nintendo Sport Boy is without doubt one of the best-selling recreation consoles of all time, not due to spectacular technical specs, however as a result of it was simply a lot enjoyable to play. The straightforward, pocketable design and the library of nice video games that you might simply decide up and play for a couple of minutes right here and there, made it a favourite of players in every single place all through the Nineteen Nineties.
These players have now grown up and have extra disposable earnings to spend on their hobbies, so the Sport Boy is getting a brand new lease on life. And that doesn’t simply imply via emulation—all kinds of Sport Boy-inspired merchandise are actually popping up. One of many extra in style choices of late is the LEGO Sport Boy set.
This tradition GPU drives the show (📷: LCLDIY)
However as cool as this LEGO Sport Boy seems sitting on a shelf, that’s about all it is good for after it has been constructed. That doesn’t sit proper with loads of players who truly wish to play their Sport Boy, so quite a few {hardware} hackers have taken the time to stuff electronics in between these plastic bricks to make that doable.
A Chinese language maker that goes by the deal with LCLDIY liked the thought of a playable LEGO Sport Boy, however he had one thing even larger in thoughts—actually. LCLDIY made a giant-sized LEGO Sport Boy that blurs the strains between a recreation console and a show piece.
This isn’t just a few 3D-printed shell with a pc monitor or LCD TV slapped inside. LCLDIY used a classic electroluminescent show with a heat amber glow that’s paying homage to the looks of an actual Sport Boy display. The shell itself isn’t normal both. Fairly than utilizing a conventional 3D printer, LCLDIY used a light-curing resin printer for a clean, good case.
It will also be hooked as much as gamepads (📷: LCLDIY)
Contained in the case, there’s a classic Intel 845 motherboard to drive the show and Sport Boy emulation software program. Now, an electroluminescent show isn’t precisely regular for a desktop laptop to interface with, so there have been no present ports that might talk with it. Because of this, LCLDIY developed a customized graphics card centered across the 65540 Flat Panel VGA Controller chip. This made it easy to ship the show all the distinctive synchronization, clock, and knowledge alerts it wants. The construct was completed off with some spray paint to get the colour good, arcade-style buttons, and switch stickers for labels and logos.
LCLDIY has made the design information and the graphics card BIOS freely out there to anybody who want to replicate the work. Take a look at the challenge write-up for all the small print.
