Developer John Cronin has demonstrated simply how highly effective fashionable microcontrollers are — through the use of an STMicroelectronics STM32H7S7 to drive a handheld console able to operating arcade, PC, and eight- and 16-bit console video games: the gk Handheld.
“gk is a small, battery powered handheld gaming console operating on an MCU [Microcontroller Unit] (STM32H7S7) operating at 600MHz coupled to 128MiB of XSPI SDRAM,” Cronin explains. “It has a 640×480 pixel 24-bit color touchscreen, audio output (headphones/built-in speaker), accelerometer/gyrometer for tilt detection, USB interface for provisioning, and Wi-Fi community help.”
Wanting like a chunky Nintendo Recreation Boy, albeit one with a full-color display, each analog and digital motion choices, and 4 fireplace buttons, the gk Handheld showcases simply how far expertise has are available in solely a few a long time. Whereas STMicro positions the STM32H7S7 powering the gadget as a microcontroller, it is significantly extra highly effective than the processors powering desktop PCs and video games consoles of 20 years again — highly effective sufficient, in truth, to emulate them.
Cronin has examined the machine operating emulators for the Atari Lynx, Sega Grasp System, Nintendo Leisure System (NES) and Tremendous Nintendo Leisure System (SNES), and even the Nintendo Recreation Boy from which its housing was impressed — with easier video games operating at a full 60 frames per second, and extra advanced ones operating at 20 frames per second at a minimal.
The chunky handheld features a built-in menu system for scrolling via its video games and emulators. (📷: John Cronin)
The microcontroller’s not simply able to emulation, although: Cronin has tried a spread of native sport ports for the chip, together with arcade titles like Pac-Man and PC video games together with id Software program’s Doom and Quake, Descent, and Command & Conquer: Purple Alert. All video games may be chosen utilizing an on-board menu system.
Cronin has launched design recordsdata and supply code for the mission on GitHub, beneath an unspecified license.
