Sega Genesis Controllers On The Philips CD-i

October 21, 2026 by Zoe Skyforest 6 Comments

The Philips CD-i was not popular upon its launch in 1991, and is barely acknowledged today. In the opinion of [MattKC], it had a particularly poor selection of controllers, too, and it’s often hard to find used examples anyway. To rectify this situation, he whipped up an adapter to let him use Sega Genesis controllers instead.

The benefit of the Genesis controller is that it uses DB-9 connectors that are readily available, and it’s got a simple pinout that is compatible with the Atari joystick port, too. It makes interfacing the controllers supremely easy. Converting the controllers required using a Arduino Pro Micro to read the Genesis pad and translate it into something suitable for the CD-i.

On the Sega controller side, the microcontroller just has to strobe one pin while reading the state of others to determine what all the buttons are doing. The CD-i, however, expects a serial data stream from the original Philips controllers. Thus, the microcontroller is set up to poll the Genesis controller, and then translate this into the serial commands for the CD-i. It gets a little complicated, because the CD-i wasn’t really built for game controllers, but mouse-like inputs instead. But it’s not too hard to get things working once you understand what the weird Philips console is looking for.

There aren’t really any good games on the CD-i, so this isn’t a project that the retro gaming masses will be flocking to. Still, if you have a CD-i and you want to hook up some controllers on the cheap, this might come in handy. Alternatively, you could also try the BlueRetro project.

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Super Mario Galaxy Now Runs On The GBA

October 20, 2026 by Maya Posch 2 Comments

Joining the ranks of fresh backported Nintendo games is Super Mario Galaxy for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance (GBA), courtesy of [Tobias Friedly], AKA [Tobi]. In a recent video he announces the release of this game, along with the release of the source code of the engine and all the game’s code in a GitHub project.

Naturally none of the original Wii game’s assets are provided to appease Nintendo’s vicious lawyers, so you’re expected to bring your own super-legally acquired ISO image or equivalent to fill in these blanks when you build your ROM for the GBA.

This is a mostly complete port, even integrating the star pointer despite the GBA’s limited number of controls compared to the Wii. In some situations it’s opted to have star bits automatically collected to work around this limitation, which is probably a quality-of-life improvement that many SMG players will appreciate.

For the game’s logic a lot of code was borrowed from the recently decompiled version of the original game, which saved a lot of time even if the GBA’s hardware is no match for the Wii’s. From the gameplay in the video it definitely looks like a playable version of the game, with an acceptable frame rate that looks to be worth a try.

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2026 Retrocomputing Challenge: Dollhouse Arcade Cabinet Runs Remote DOS Games

October 17, 2026 by Donald Papp 5 Comments

Classic DOS games never ran from within stand-up arcade cabinets in dollhouses, but [Juha Lilja] imagines a world in which they did. His Micro DOS arcade cabinet is described as a device that “runs nothing” because the tiny unit is actually streaming the games over Wi-Fi from a nearby PC. That doesn’t mean it’s just a glorified movie player, though — the cabinet is playable, if a bit awkward to do so.

An economical development board and a 3D-printed enclosure is all it takes to put classic DOS games into dollhouse-sized arcade cabinet.

The core of the micro arcade cabinet is a M5Stack AtomS3R running as an embedded remote terminal. One tilts the whole cabinet as if it were a virtual joystick to send up, down, left, and right. Button presses are done by pushing on the physical screen; it supports single, double, and long-clicks. While in theory one could install a micro joystick and buttons instead, [Juha] aimed to keep everything self-contained and use only what was already built into the AtomS3R. In this case, that’s a motion sensor and the single button which is activated by pressing the screen.

The games themselves run on a PC, with screen contents being streamed wirelessly to the little display and inputs being sent back. The firmware on the AtomS3R doesn’t know or care what game is being played; all it does is display what it’s told, and send back input events. The back end does the rest. This makes it pretty flexible, and a tiny arcade cabinet is a handy way to demonstrate the whole system. It’s a pretty slick addition to his daughter’s dollhouse, too.

If streaming DOS games (or whatever else) to economical endpoints is giving you some ideas, the GitHub repository holds code and a fuller explanation of how it works. There’s a deeper discussion on some of the finer technical points, as well. Watch it in action in the video embedded just below the page break.

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The 10€ Gamepad

October 16, 2026 by Al Williams 10 Comments

We aren’t sure what [Lazy_Duck] is doing with video games, but it must require a lot of controllers. Dismayed at the cost and complexity of commercial gamepads, they started soldering and 3D printing to get a cheaper basic controller.

The emphasis is on throwing things together, so there’s no dedicated PCB. Just a protoboard with an RP2040-Zero, a joystick, a few buttons, and a microswitch. A 3D-printed case rounds out the project.

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Braino! Takes The Cheap Yellow Display To School

October 16, 2026 by Tom Nardi 23 Comments

These days, it’s common to give even very young children a mobile device loaded up with educational software that aims to improve everything from basic motor skills to reading and arithmetic. But even the cheapest phone or tablet isn’t the kind of thing most parents would like to see get destroyed, and there’s always a concern about giving children a device that’s capable of connecting to the Internet.

Which is where Braino! from [Ankush Pandit] comes in. This suite of applications can be easily flashed to a common Cheap Yellow Display to turn it into a legitimate educational tool. Combined with a 3D printed case, the total cost of the build is low enough that you don’t have to feel bad about handing it off to even the roughest of youngsters.

[Ankush] makes it clear that this project isn’t trying to sell you anything. You’re responsible for picking up a compatible CYD and installing Braino via the web flashing application. The software is released under the GPLv3 license, and it contains no ads, user accounts, or cloud connectivity. We know not everyone is thrilled with how much time young kids spend staring at screens these days, but opinions on modern parenting aside, it’s hard to find fault with the way things have been implemented here.

When the parent sets up Braino they can pick which of the 40 games can be accessed, allowing the experience to be tailored to the individual child’s age and ability. Should you decide to enable Bluetooth, some of the games even support wireless multiplayer between devices.

The commonality of the Cheap Yellow Display is one of its best features, and Braino does an excellent job of showing why that’s so important. Trying to develop a project like this without a standardized platform of some type would be a non-starter, but when anyone can get a CYD sent to their house from Amazon and flash it right from the browser, it’s makes the whole thing far more accessible.

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Running DOOM (Sort Of) On A Sonoff Smart Switch

October 16, 2026 by Tom Nardi 12 Comments

It’s often said in this community that DOOM can be made to run on anything, and as time goes on, that’s becoming more and more accurate. We’re at the point now that every “normal” device seems to have some version of the iconic 1993 shooter, so now there’s nothing left but to start working on the more oddball targets.

As a perfect example, [piuppi] recently wrote in to share their efforts to get DOOM — or at least something that looks like it — running on the Sonoff Basic R2 smart switch. We say something that looks like it because the game you’re seeing in the video below isn’t actually DOOM. In fact, it’s not even really a full game. It’s essentially a tech demo that’s capable of rendering graphical data pulled from the game, but only within the confines of simplistic map. Still, not bad for something designed to turn lamps on and off.

The GitHub repo includes excellent documentation should you want to rip and tear on your own Sonoff device. As you might expect the process is a bit involved, and does require you to provide your own copy of DOOM for the script to extract the necessary data from. After it’s setup, you can hit the switch from any browser on the local network and take out your frustrations on the state of modern home automation on some imps. The best part is, even after the game is installed and running on the switch, the device still actually works as a switch.

But don’t worry. Even in the unlikely event that we run out of devices that can be hacked to run DOOM, there’s still a whole world of gadgets out there that need their own port of Duke Nukem 3D.

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Single Button, Handheld Gaming Console

October 14, 2026 by Bryan Cockfield 7 Comments

Those of us who grew up in the 70s and 80s might be familiar with the Atari 2600 console and its now relatively unrecognizable (by modern standards) controller with only a single button and stiff whole-hand joystick. By comparison, the Steam Deck has somewhere around 24 buttons and two joysticks depending on how they are counted. But even the Atari might be providing more user inputs than are really necessary for quality gaming. Take a look at the Dinoboy, a handheld console with only a single button.

Part of what makes this system work is that it’s playing the classic dinosaur jumping game first included in Google Chrome which loads when the browser can’t connect to the Internet, and the user’s single input was the space bar. In this case, the handheld has its single button where the user’s thumb naturally rests. The console itself is in two parts, hinged where the button is placed. When unfolded, the top half reveals a wide screen and the bottom half is held by the hand. The screen supports two color formats, a black and white style and another which replicates the dot matrix display of the original Game Boy.

The small handheld console has another trick up its sleeve too. [Paul], the system’s creator, built it as a way to stop doomscrolling so along with having this quick-deploying game on hand, there’s also an NFC tag hidden near the hinge which, when swiped passed a phone, also turns that phone’s airplane mode on. It’s a double-whammy of removing the gamer from the dark patterns and algorithms dominating the mainstream Internet. And, this isn’t [Paul]’s only dinosaur jumper console either. We recently featured a similar (but much larger) build of his housed in a classic arcade-style cabinet.