One of the earliest Nintendo products to gain popularity was the Game and Watch product line. Produced by Nintendo between 1980 and 1991, they are a source of nostalgia for many an 80s or 90s kid. These were those electronic handheld games that had pre-drawn monochrome images that would light up to make very basic animations. [Andrew] loved his old “Vermin” game as a kid, but eventually he sold it off. Wanting to re-live those childhood memories, he decided to build his own Game and Watch emulator.
The heart of [Andrew’s] build is a PIC18F4550 USB demo board he found on eBay. The board allows you to upload HEX files directly via USB using some simple front end software. [Andrew] wrote the code for his game in C using MPLAB. His device uses a Nokia 5110 LCD screen and is powered from a small lithium ion battery.
For the housing, [Andrew] started from another old handheld game that was about the right size. He gutted all of the old parts and stuck the new ones in their place. He also gave the housing a sort of brushed metal look using spray paint. The end result is a pretty good approximation of the original thing as evidenced by the video below.
Whats he wacking? Wait a minute, let me rephrase that. What are the enemies in the game? They look like gators.
Moles
Very Nice.
Nice!
I once heard of an art course that let users design their own LCDs, as in draw the shapes that deluminate. That’d be amazing to do.
I have a Gamebuino, its the same only with a atmega328p chip and sound.
http://gamebuino.com/
http://gamebuino.com/wiki/index.php?title=Games
That’s brilliant! If Only I knew about Gamebuino before embarking on my DIY Game & Watch project (above). How long has it been about? Do you make any decent money selling it? How did you get it all produced, did you subcontract the case manufacturing
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Hope you get a few more sales as a result of links from here :-)
Andrew
I dont product it, i only spend money on the indiegogo campaign and i coded the first games for it.
Oh yeah, sorry. I thought you had built it. Still, it’s pretty cool.
nice, also found the description how to make one yourself:
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@boompanot/how-to-make-your-own-diy-gaming-console-gamebuino
I am building something similar, working om Game & watch Chef clone, STM32F103 with 2.4″ full color TFT 320x240px.
Came this far in a weekend, ripped some sprite form other game. :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvPTtPHXjPs
Nintendo re-released the various Game & Watch games in a collection for original Game Boy, which you could play in both classic and “enhanced” mode (new sprites, etc). Could be a good source for official Chef images : )
Sweet, My next Game & Watch project was going to be using a 320×240 colour screen and a PIC32. Nice to see I’m not the only one with these mad ideas.
Andrew
One of the earliest Nintendo products to gain popularity, in the sense that it came out in the first one hundred years of Nintendo’s existence, although after numerous other popular products, the very earliest of which came out almost a century before the Game & Watch.
I had trouble figuring out what you meant with “first 100 years”, thinking you were talking about the 1800s or something. But you mean at the END of those years. Might’ve been phrased a little easier, like, “in 1981, after nearly a century in business…”. Since Nintendo’s ancient history vs the Game And Watch don’t have a lot to link them mentally.