The Arduboy is a

handheld game console A handheld game console, or simply handheld console, is a small, portable self-contained video game console with a built-in screen, game controls and speakers. Handheld game consoles are smaller than home video game consoles and contain the con ...

with

open source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use and view the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open source model is a decentrali ...

software, based on the

Arduino Arduino () is an Italian open-source hardware and open-source software, software company, project, and user community that designs and manufactures single-board microcontrollers and microcontroller kits for building digital devices. Its hardwar ...

hardware platform.

History

Development

The original version of the Arduboy was thick, with the height and width of a credit card, and was initially designed by Kevin Bates, an american Arduino enthusiast, as an electronic

business card Business cards are card stock, cards bearing business information about a company or individual. They are shared during formal introductions as a convenience and a memory aid. A business card typically includes the giver's name, types of co ...

. In preparation for a consumer version, the developer moved to

Shenzhen Shenzhen is a prefecture-level city in the province of Guangdong, China. A Special economic zones of China, special economic zone, it is located on the east bank of the Pearl River (China), Pearl River estuary on the central coast of Guangdong ...

, China to work on the Arduboy at the HAX accelerator. Later consumer versions replaced the first version's touch-sensitive panels by physical buttons, and include a protective plastic case, raising the thickness to . A non-production smaller formfactor "Arduboy Mini" was demonstrated in 2019. Another non-production system, the "Arduboy Nano" was demonstrated in 2021 with a smaller formfactor than the Arduboy Mini.

Consumer versions

A Kickstarter campaign was being planned in 2014. Development was funded through a

Kickstarter Kickstarter, PBC is an American Benefit corporation, public benefit corporation based in Brooklyn, New York City, that maintains a global crowdfunding platform focused on creativity. The company's stated mission is to "help bring creative project ...

campaign in 2015. The launch price of the original Arduboy was either $29 or $39. In August 2020, Arduboy announced 'Arduboy FX', an upgraded version that includes a flash memory chip that stores over 250 games on the device itself. This version shipped around 2021 at a price of $54.

Tetris Microcard

As well as the open-source Arduboy itself, a single-game version featuring an officially licensed (non-open) version of

Tetris ''Tetris'' () is a puzzle video game created in 1985 by Alexey Pajitnov, a Soviet software engineer. In ''Tetris'', falling tetromino shapes must be neatly sorted into a pile; once a horizontal line of the game board is filled in, it disa ...

is also available.

Hardware

The Arduboy is

. The compute platform of the Arduboy is based on that of the

. Both the Arduboy and the Arduboy FX use an 8-bit ATMega32u4 microcontroller as the primary processor, RAM, and storage device of the system. The system ships with 2.5 kilobytes of RAM. The Arduboy has 32 kilobytes of flash storage, as well as 1 kilobyte of EEPROM. The Arduboy FX features additional storage through the use of an official modchip, installed either from the factory or aftermarket. The system uses a 128x64px

OLED An organic light-emitting diode (OLED), also known as organic electroluminescent (organic EL) diode, is a type of light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is an organic compound film that emits light in respon ...

display of only 1 bit. Audio is handled by

stereo Stereophonic sound, commonly shortened to stereo, is a method of sound reproduction that recreates a multi-directional, 3-dimensional audible perspective. This is usually achieved by using two independent audio channels through a configurat ...

Piezoelectric speaker A piezoelectric speaker (also known as a piezo bender due to its mode of operation, and sometimes colloquially called a "piezo", buzzer, crystal loudspeaker or beep speaker) is a loudspeaker that uses the piezoelectric effect for generating sou ...

s. The system is powered for about 5-8 hours on a rechargeable

thin film A thin film is a layer of materials ranging from fractions of a nanometer ( monolayer) to several micrometers in thickness. The controlled synthesis of materials as thin films (a process referred to as deposition) is a fundamental step in many ...

lithium polymer battery A lithium polymer battery, or more correctly, lithium-ion polymer battery (abbreviated as LiPo, LIP, Li-poly, lithium-poly, and others), is a rechargeable battery derived from lithium-ion and lithium-metal battery technology. The primary differ ...

with a capacity of 180 mAh. The system has a microUSB connector. The console can also be used as a simple controller or input device for other systems. Casing is made from both

aluminum Aluminium (or aluminum in North American English) is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol Al and atomic number 13. It has a density lower than that of other common metals, about one-third that of steel. Aluminium has ...

and

polycarbonate Polycarbonates (PC) are a group of thermoplastic polymers containing carbonate ester, carbonate groups in their chemical structures. Polycarbonates used in engineering are strong, toughness, tough materials, and some grades are optically transp ...

References

External links

* {{Handheld game consoles Arduino Handheld game consoles Kickstarter-funded video game consoles Monochrome video game consoles Open hardware electronic devices