Mining cryptocurrency is a power intensive business, with big operations hoarding ASIC rigs and high-end GPUs in an endless quest for world domination money. The Bitcoin-mining Game Boy from [stacksmashing] is one of them. (Video, embedded below.)
The hack is relatively straightforward. The Game Boy is hooked up to a PC via a Raspberry Pi Pico and a level shifter to handle the different voltage levels. The Game Boy runs custom software off a flash cart, which runs the SHA hash algorithm on incoming data from the PC and reports results back to the PC which communicates with the Bitcoin network.
[stacksmashing] does a great job of explaining the project, covering everything from the Game Boy’s link port protocol to the finer points of the Bitcoin algorithm in explicit detail. For the technically experienced, everything you need to know to recreate the project is there. While the Game Boy manages just 0.8 hashes per second, trillions of times slower than cutting edge hardware, the project nonetheless is amusing and educational, so take that into consideration before firing off hot takes in the comments below. If you’re really interested in the underlying maths, you can try crunching Bitcoin hashes with pen and paper.
[Thanks to Stephan for the tip!]
You can do that with a 555 ;-P
Technically you can do it with a bag of 555s.
If you do it, they will feature it.
What’s day is it today? April the first :|
This is actually not a joke. I saw this on the radar a few days ago before HaD ran up an article.
This is a joke but a much more sophisticated and wonderful one.
Japanese culture has a concept of unuseless gadgets, things that do what they’re designed to do but what they’re designed to do is not worthwhile, ironic, or self-defeating. Think boots with attached giant containers so you can fill them with soap and clothes and do your laundry while you walk. This is solidly in that territory.
I very much hope the hackaday editors saw this and cultivated it lovingly for this moment, when its sheer brilliance will be best appreciated.
If we ever become a Type II civilization (https://futurism.com/the-kardashev-scale-of-civilization-types) it will be because of the need to power cryptocurrencies.
Yay, let’s waste even more energy on this scam!
That is why you will continue being broke. Cryptocurrency is not a scam.
Neither belittling others nor boasting of your piles of filthy crypto-lucre is a rebuttal of the original post…
I think we are too closely coupled to the Kardashian Culture to advance to the next level.
Our first Dyson Sphere will be a bitcoin miner.
Bring on the “pleasure model” Roombas!
But yes we have entered “hold my beer” levels of advancement haha.
Great all the bots are going to attack gameboys and list them on eBay for 1400$
Fun fact, price of 2nd hand gameboys has gone up with lockdowns happening everywhere.
Is a “flash cart” something you push around PC World?
In some sense, mining Bitcoin on completely unsuitable hardware appears to be this generation’s “But can it run Doom?”
Crysis*
How many AA’s per Bitcoin?
More than in Mercedes AA class…
Rebranding to mineboy™
Oh my gosh!! Hahah this makes me want to dig around for my old nintendo games …. New Game Idea: Mine the Bitcoin!? :)