Using The Basic SNES Hardware To Play Minecraft

August 23, 2026 by Maya Posch 16 Comments

After previously putting a very basic version of Minecraft on the Game Boy Color, [Tobi] decided to have some fun and port that version also to the Super Nintendo (SNES), just to see what would happen with its more powerful hardware. Even without using an add-on chip like the Super FX 3D chip that made games like Star Fox and Doom possible with its 3D-rendered geometry, the basic SNES hardware can already provide a serviceable Minecraft experience.

You can download the SFC file here, featuring a starting world in which you can do all the usual Minecraft-ing shenanigans, like world destruction and construction. Unsurprisingly the game’s resolution is much higher than on the GBC, though the brief glimpse [Tobi] shows of Minecraft on the Game Boy Advance (GBA) with its proper 3D-rendering hardware are leaps ahead of what the basic SNES can do.

This of course raises the question of what Minecraft on the SNES could look like once you add the Super FX or similar 3D accelerator chips for the SNES into the mix. Rather than just being limited to sprite-based graphics and transformations, suddenly you can use real polygons.

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Samsung Printer Is The Next Frontier Of Minecraft Servers

August 20, 2026 by Tyler August 6 Comments

While DOOM remains the undisputed champion of ‘game you play on every piece of hardware’ it seems that the role of ‘game you play on everything just because you can’ is slowly being shifted to Minecraft, as we have yet another Minecraft server somewhere Minecraft has no business being served– in this case, a Samsung Printer.

The hack actually requires opening up the printer to get at the debug ports to bang your way in via serial, but as any security expert will tell you, once the black hats have physical access to a machine, they own it. That isn’t to say it’s easy– [vimpo] had to dump the firmware and find an exploit. Since it’s 2026 [vimpo] tried to get an LLM to do all that hard work for him, and while it helped with identifying functions in the dump, ultimately the hacking still fell upon [vimpo]’s human intelligence, though not before burning through millions of tokens. Having found a good old fashioned UDP overflow exploit, he’s gets control of the printer and puts an improved version of his lightweight Minecraft server, UCraft, on it. Like the server, the exploit is also on GitHub but you’ll very likely need the exact same printer to get it to work: a Samsung C410W with firmware V3.00.02.20, DEC-15-2015. One important caveat is that while you can still use the printer as intended after this hack, you cannot do so while playing Minecraft: it crashes the server if you try. Good to know.

In case you’re wondering, yes, this is the same guy who got a Minecraft server running on a light-bulb, which arguably more impressive. Where he might mine and/or craft next is anybody’s guess. Somebody else already did the ESP32-C3, and while we suspect nothing will ever beat the 1960s Univac implementation for sheer impracticality, we’re willing to be surprised.

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Wayland Comes To Minecraft

May 21, 2026 by Bryan Cockfield 5 Comments

The overall adoption and implementation of Wayland — intended as a replacement for the decades-old X11 windowing system — in the Linux world has been full of fits and starts. But perhaps the most surprising adopter we’ve seen yet is this Minecraft patch which brings a full Wayland compositor into the game.

This software project, called Waylandcraft, is the brainchild of a developer known as [EVVIE] who spent a considerable amount of time and effort getting this to work. According to a post on GamingOnLinux it was also done the old fashioned way, with no AI involved.

Users wanting to run this compositor need a Linux system to run Minecraft, as well as the Fabric mod loader and a few other tools. For those wishing to show off to their friends, though, they’ll need to do so in-person as streaming the Wayland windows to other users in the server is not possible.

With everything running, you’ll be able to launch arbitrary programs and have the windows placed within the Minecraft world as if they were in-game. Users can place the windows in any orientation and can interact with them like any other desktop environment. [EVVIE] has released all of the code under the GPL for anyone wanting to try it out or build on the project itself.

If you haven’t spun up a Minecraft server at all yet, all you really need is something like an ESP32 to get started.

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What Can You Run On A 1960s Univac? Anything You’re Willing To Wait For!

April 18, 2026 by Tyler August 14 Comments

There are two UNIVAC 1219B computers that have survived since the 1960s and one of them is even operational. [Nathan Farlow] wanted to run a Minecraft server on it, so he did. After a lot of work, of course, which is described in a detailed blog post, and, a YouTube video by [TheScienceElf] we’ve embedded below.

The UNIVAC is a seriously weird architecture by modern standards: it’s got eighteen-bit words — yeah, not even a power of two — and one’s compliment arithmatic with a weird signed zero thing going on. There’s one 36-bit and one 18-bit register, and only 40,960 words of memory. Eighteen-bit words. Yeah, it was the 1960s and they were making it up as they went along.

[Nathan] wasn’t, entirely, as this weird system is both well-documented and already had an emulator — in BASIC, of all things. [TheScienceElf] used the docs and the existing emulator to recreate his own in Rust so he could test their somewhat crazy plan without wasting cycles on real hardware. The plan? Well, there are really only two options if you want to build modern software for a niche architecture: one is to add niche support to something like GCC, and the other is to write a RISC V emulator and compile to that. We’ve seen that second one before, and that’s the route [Nathan] took.

Of course, [Nathan] is a machine learning guy, so he made the best possible use of LLMs — though it’s interesting to see that unlike Z80 Assembly, Claude Code really couldn’t wrap its virtual head around the UNIVAC’s assembly language, and [Nathan] had to bang out the RISC V emulator himself. Emulator in hand, [Nathan] and friends had code to run on the museum UNIVAC. A single frame of an NES game took 40 minutes, but hey, at least it finished before they got back from lunch.

[TheScienceElf]’s YouTube treatment teases hosting Minecraft, but it wasn’t a full server, just the login portion. That they were able to get TCP/IP over serial and set up a handshake between a 2020s laptop and a 1960s computer is still mighty impressive. Just the work the Vintage Computer Federation put in to get and keep this antique running is mighty impressive all on its own, but it’s wonderful they let people play with it.

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Arnis Brings The World To Minecraft: Bedrock Edition

January 17, 2026 by Ian Bos 7 Comments

A couple of years ago, we covered a project called Arnis, created by [Louis Erbkamm], which allowed you to generate any portion of Earth into Minecraft blocks and maps. It was already impressive, but since we last checked in the open source project has made some incredible progress.

When we first covered Arnis, it was stuck on the Java edition of Minecraft. But now the project has been updated to support the more modern Bedrock Edition, meaning you can put your home into any device’s version of Minecraft!

Beyond Bedrock version support, the actual tool has improved with proper elevation generation using data provided from NASA. This allows you to view the Alps or the Himalayas in all their voxel glory, or explore an entire map of the Moon. Perhaps what’s even more impressive is that the generation is accurate enough to be used in an actual research study involving flood mitigation education.

All of this has been made possible with help from a passionate community who have volunteered their time to assist [Louis] with the project — a testament to the power of open source.

Running A Minecraft Server On A WiFi Light Bulb

November 13, 2025 by Maya Posch 36 Comments

WiFi-enabled ‘smart’ light bulbs are everywhere these days, and each one of them has a microcontroller inside that’s capable enough to run all sorts of interesting software. For example, [vimpo] decided to get one running a minimal Minecraft server.

The Bl602-equipped board inside the LED lightbulb. (Credit: vimpo, YouTube)

Inside the target bulb is a BL602 MCU by Bouffalo Lab, that features not only a radio supporting 2.4 GHz WiFi and BLE 5, but also a single-core RISC-V CPU that runs at 192 MHz and is equipped with 276 kB of RAM and 128 kB flash.

This was plenty of space for the minimalist Minecraft server [vimpo] wrote several years ago. The project says it was designed for “machines with limited resources”, but you’ve still got to wonder if they ever thought it would end up running on a literal lightbulb at some point.

It should be noted, of course, that this is not the full Minecraft server, and it should only be used for smaller games like the demonstrated TNT run mini game.

Perhaps the next challenge will be to combine a large set of these light bulbs into a distributed computing cluster and run a full-fat Minecraft server? It seems like a waste to leave the BL602s and Espressif MCUs that are in these IoT devices condemned to a life of merely turning the lights on or off when we could have them do so much more.

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Building A Minecraft Lantern For Halloween

October 21, 2025 by Zoe Skyforest 5 Comments

Sometimes it’s fun to bring props from video games into the real world. [Hulk] has done just that with their latest Halloween build—creating a working replica of the lantern from Minecraft.

Key to the build is the 3D printed enclosure, which faithfully mimics the look of the in-game item. By virtue of Minecraft’s simplistic visual style, it’s a relatively straightforward print, without a lot of quirky geometry or difficult overhangs that might otherwise trip up your printer. It’s printed in six parts and assembled with acrylic lenses which act to diffuse the light coming from inside.

Electronically, an Arduino Nano runs the show. It’s hooked up to a pair of NeoPixel addressable LED rings, which provide rich RGB colors on demand. Rotary pots are installed on the enclosure to enable the color to be tuned to the user’s desire. Power is courtesy of an 18650 lithium-ion cell and a TP4056 module ensures the battery is kept happy when charging.

It’s a fun prop build, and one that would be the perfect addition to any Minecraft costume. Except for maybe a chicken jockey, because they don’t use lanterns. In any case, we’ve seen similar work before, too.

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