Day: March 11, 2026

Mini Multi-Arcade Game Cabinets With An ESP32 And Galagino

March 11, 2026 by 7 Comments

Most people love arcade games, but putting a full-sized arcade cabinet in the living room can lead to certain unpleasant complications. Ergo the market for fun-sized cabinets has exploded alongside the availability of cheap SBCs and MCUs that can run classical arcade titles. Microcontrollers like the ESP32 with its dual 240 MHz cores can run circles around the CPU grunt of 1980s arcade hardware. Cue [Till Harbaum]’s Galagino ESP32-based arcade emulator project, that recently saw some community versions and cabinet takes.

There was a port to the PlatformIO framework by [speckhoiler] which also added a few more arcade titles and repurposed the enclosure of an off-the-shelf ‘My Arcade’ by stuffing in an ESP32-based ‘Cheap Yellow Display‘ (CYD) board instead. These boards include the ESP32 module, a touch display, micro SD card slot, sound output, and more; making it an interesting all-in-one solution for this purpose.

Most recently [Davide Gatti] and friends ported the Galagino software to the Arduino platform and added a 3D printed enclosure, though you will still need to source a stack of parts which are listed in the bill of materials. What you do get is a top display that displays the current game title in addition to the display of the usual CYD core, along with an enclosure that can be printed both in single- or multi-color.

There’s also a build video that [Davide Gatti] made, but it’s only in Italian, so a bit of a crash course in this language may be required for some finer details.

Continue reading “Mini Multi-Arcade Game Cabinets With An ESP32 And Galagino” →

Mimisbrunnur

Calculator Case To Scratch-Built Pocket E-Reader

March 11, 2026 by 7 Comments

E-readers are an awesome creation allowing you to display digital information in a way that requires little battery life. While there’s plenty of very impressive models to chose from on the commercial market, it’s also possible to build one yourself — which is exactly what [kaos-69] did in his Mimisbrunnur project, creating a truly unique e-reader from scratch.

While looking through old junk at home, [kaos-69] came across a case that held a calculator and pen at one point in the distant past. The pen was gone and the calculator no longer functioned but the case held promise. He removed the calculator and got some parts on order. For the e-paper display he went with a 5.83-inch unit that just fit inside the spring-loaded case. The Mimisbrunnur is powered by a 2000 mAh LiPo battery, with a micro SD card reader for storing what will be displayed. The brains come from an RP2040 microcontroller on an Adafruit Feather breakout board, which worked out great as it already takes care of battery management and the 24-pin interface for the e-paper display.

There are also eight buttons that live below the display for user interface, and even some LEDs to aid in reading in the dark. The depth of the case allowed all this to be connected with the use of a perfboard and some risers to set the screen forward, allowing the battery to live behind it. Using the Mimisbrunnur is pretty straightforward with the eight buttons sitting below icons on the screen giving you clear guidance on how to turn the page, add a bookmark, or browse the SD card for another file to open.

We’ve seen some impressive DIY e-readers over the years, such as the dual-screen Diptyx and the Open Book. But this project is an excellent reminder that a device doesn’t have to be complex to get the job done.