Expressif might not have intended the ESP32-S3 to become an emulation powerhouse, but that’s certainly what has happened. The little microcontroller seems perfect for recreating the Game Boys or Game Gears of years past, and there are a lot of software options to that end. Having grabbed firmware off a github repo, you still need a physical build to hold, and that’s where this one by [HVT Lab and Huy Vector] stands out.
As you can see, they’re letting everything hang out — not even in a 90s-inspired clear case, but with an open frame of soldered brass, with just a small strip of 2 mm clear acrylic to help stabilize the buttons. That appears to be held with cyanoacrylate glue, but it’s brass and solder doing the majority of the structural work here. We might be a little more confident tossing this lovely device in a bag or pocket if the whole device was boxed in with that acrylic — shorting the exposed power bus on your keys sounds like a bummer — but we can’t argue with the aesthetic vision here. It’s a lovely build on the physical end.
From the video it looks like the software is based on Retro-Go, which we’ve seen in use before. In any case, there are plenty of open source projects you could load onto the ESP32-S3 powering this circuit sculpture, though, from NES to IBM PC.
Both the ESP32S2 and ESP32S3 are a lot of fun to play with.
even the ESP8266 is a lot of fun, particularly to anyone with expectations set back in the 1980s. if you’re processing non-graphical data such as text or numbers, it is usually fast enough
You can get an ESP32-S3 with OLED display for $10 these days. Check out the ES3N28P. And it comes with built in mic, great connectors, SD card slot, battery charge management chip, usb-c connector. For an extra couple of bucks you can have capacitive touch too with the ES3C28P.
Reminds me of the earliest Communicators from Star Trek
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wnM-TcXLvuk&pp=ygUuQ2VydGlmaWFibHkgaW5nYW1lIGNvbW11bmljYXRvcnMgYW5kIGNvbWJhZGdlcw%3D%3D
Cleaned URL: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wnM-TcXLvuk
based on that image don’t try to bring this on a plane
Love the relaxing music, and the sizzle of the soldering iron.
Not to mention the “clicks” of cutting the brass tubing.
Fun to watch the assembly, but it must be tricky to solder those brass tubes to the buttons without heating the plexiglass!
👍
Not very practical, unless you could somehow pot it in clear resin.
Yeah, it’s a sculpture, looks nice. But with isolated cables, half the spacing and a case…
Is nobody going to mention the unwrapped lithium cells? Very dangerous