Until now, if you were seated at your Sega Genesis and wanted to check your stock portfolio, you were out of luck. You had to get a smartphone, or a computer, or maybe even a television to look up stock prices and understand your financial position. Thankfully, though, Sega’s neglect of its hero platform has finally been corrected. [Mike Wolak] has given the 16-bit console the real-time stock ticker it so desperately needed.
The build runs on a MegaWiFi cartridge, which uses an ESP8266 or ESP32 microcontroller to add WiFi communication to the Sega Genesis (or Mega Drive). [Mike] wrote a custom program for the platform that would query the Finnhub HTTPS API and display live stock prices via the Genesis’s Video Display Processor. It does so via a clean console-like interface that would be familiar to users of other 16-bit machines from this era, though seeing so much textual output would have been uncommon.
By default, the stock ticker is set to show prices for major tech stocks, but you can set it up to display any major symbol available in the Finnhub data stream. You can configure up to eight custom stocks and input your holdings, and the software will calculate and display your net worth in real time.
All the files are available for those eager to monitor their portfolios on a Sega, as the financial gods intended. [Mike] notes it took a little work to get this project over the line, particularly as the ESP32-C3 doesn’t support HTTPs with stock firmware. A few other hacks were needed to keep the Genesis updating the screen during HTTP queries, too.
If you have a concentrated portfolio and a spare Sega Genesis, this could be a fun retro way to keep an eye on your holdings. Alternatively, you might prefer to go the classic paper tape route.
“You had to get a smartphone, or a computer, or maybe even a television to look up stock prices”
You still need a tv … just sayin
Or a Sega Nomad. :)
What a miserable and misanthropic comment. You’re clearly on the wrong site.
<— The Guardian is over there, or perhaps you’re looking for the Morning Star newspaper.
Cannot imagine defending wall street lol
But to be honest, I felt deeply disgusted at first, too.
I even wanted to comment at first, but surpressed the urge and canceled.
That being said, I think the application software itself is neat! It looks fine, too!
I like the idea of new software for the Genesis.
I just wished it was a more, um, “peaceful” one.
Such as a weather forecast or another information software.
Maybe something like a solar flux application for ham radio or something. I don’t know.
(PS: I’m not from the US, but Europe. I don’t mean to brag about it, just distancing here.)
Why on earth would you be deeply disgusted by this? It displays stock prices. Not sure why you don’t think this is peaceful…..
Pure capitalism on a kid’s video game?
Whole thing is vibe-coded, Claude contributions hidden on Github, completely dishonest.
At least it isn’t crypto or NFT prices.
Curious he says it doesn’t support HTTPS with stock firmware, it does since many years ago. Why do I know? Because I made MegaWiFi XD. And I even made a Telegram BOT API implementation for the Megadrive many years ago, that requires HTTPS.
I know. But the mindset is deeply ingrained in those people’s minds, it seems.
They believe that money and success buys them happines and safety.
Which maybe is true in their twisted nation, even, if all are raised same superficial way. Sigh. 😮💨
But otherwhere, healthy social relationships do still count. Family, friends, partners.. Unless toxic, of course.
Um, what I should mention maybe, is, that Japan had similar software for the Famicom (NES).
They had business software over there, since the Famicom served as a family computer, as a home terminal.
They had modems for that thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Computer_Network_System
Now it makes a bit of sense that the MegaDrive, err, Genesis got this software here, maybe.
Because the Genesis was as popular in the US as the Super Famicom was in Japan.
Anyone else looking into upgrading the ESP32 module to the new C5 dual-band Wi-Fi variant?