
Arduboy – A game system the size of a credit card - bpierre
https://www.arduboy.com/
======
jdietrich
Good luck to them. My cigarette-packet maths says that the BoM cost is about
$12 at Shenzhen prices. If they gain any traction, they're going to get killed
by the Chinese clone merchants. They don't appear to have much in the way of
defensible IP, so the healthy margins on that $49 retail price are going to
get squeezed _hard_.

~~~
pkaye
Do these Chinese clone merchants have an email where I can send them ideas for
products where there is a need so I don't have to go to the hassle of building
out an idea myself and just enjoy the final product?

~~~
formula1
Im assuming they way they work is supply existing demand with a cheaper
product. Much less risky than attempting to entire an untested market

------
malkia
So much fun, similar other projects:

PocketCHIP - [http://getchip.com](http://getchip.com)

LameStation - [http://www.lamestation.com](http://www.lamestation.com)

Gamebuino - [http://gamebuino.com](http://gamebuino.com)

Meggy Jr RGB Soldering Kit -
[http://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/tinykitlist/10...](http://shop.evilmadscientist.com/productsmenu/tinykitlist/100-meggyjr)

I bought for my son, the piper (minecraft+scratch) -
[http://playpiper.com](http://playpiper.com) and

there is also Kano - [http://kano.me](http://kano.me)

~~~
Paul_S
I'm sorry for OT, but the kano.me link does a strange thing I notice lots of
websites started doing recently. The moment you move your mouse to close the
window it creates a popup. Why, and how? I feel really naive asking this but
do websites now track the pointer position?

~~~
lethargic_meat
That's the dreadful "call to action" popups every SEO "guru" recommends you to
add to your Wordpress site:

[http://www.jeffbullas.com/2015/09/16/10-popup-calls-to-
actio...](http://www.jeffbullas.com/2015/09/16/10-popup-calls-to-action-
readers-wont-able-resist/)

I do hate and actively block them.

------
qwertyuiop924
$49 is pretty steep compared to a gameboy, which goes for $20, has a massive
catalogue, affordable flashcarts, and several decent toolchains (I personally
reccomend WLA-DX). And it also doubles as an excellent music production
platform (provided you like chiptunes) thanks to LSDJ.

The GBA goes for similar prices, and has similar benfits (and yes, it's got a
solid toolchain). Plus, it plays all the old gameboy games, so all of the
above applies (although LSDJ is a royal pain to use on the original GBA, as it
assumes a standard GB button layout. Nanoloop has a version explicitly for the
GBA, which takes advantage of the new sound hardware, but Nanoloop carts are
very expensive).

~~~
alxmdev
Sure used Gameboys are cheaper, but the supply of usable ones will surely
dwindle in the coming years as old hardware inevitably breaks down. It's good
to see efforts to create new devices with personality that are fun to work
with, not to mention being _designed_ for homebrew software instead of relying
on hacks and 3rd party carts.

~~~
bane
There's tons of Gameboy and GBA clones on the market.

[https://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Black-Revo-K101-Emulator-
Hand...](https://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Black-Revo-K101-Emulator-
Handheld/dp/B013T7LT8M/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480391516&sr=8-1&keywords=dingoo+a380)

[http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/05/hardware_review_rev...](http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2015/05/hardware_review_revo_k101_plus)

[http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/07/hardware_review_exe...](http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2016/07/hardware_review_exeq_gamebox_game_boy_advance_sp_clone)

(seriously, I'm not even dipping my toe in this list, there's _dozens_ of
these)

------
cr0sh
I wish this thing wasn't the size of a credit card; I mean - I understand
cuteness and marketability and everything...

...but with buttons that small and close together, for me it would be painful
to play for any long period. Heck, I didn't play my gameboy color for long
because it's smaller size caused my thumbs to ache after a while.

Maybe my hands are just too big.

~~~
sturmeh
Don't worry, there isn't much "endless" playing to be had with this thing.

------
snissn
Hi! Could you please make an iPhone case with arduboy in it? Like this but
playable

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OMB5C6A/](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00OMB5C6A/)

~~~
dalbasal
I would love to see that become a category. Smart cases.

~~~
samstave
Give them their own battery though....

------
felideon
Reminds me of
[https://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip](https://getchip.com/pages/pocketchip)
which runs PICO-8.

~~~
desireco42
CHIP is also $50.

~~~
serf
CHIP, the single board computer, is 9 dollars.

PocketCHIP, which is a CHIP with a screen, case, keyboard, battery, and
breakout is 49 dollars.

------
tonmoy
$49 seems very expensive. I could get an android device and start learning
"programming" by making android games instead for the same cost.

~~~
khedoros1
Android has the major barrier of extra complexity. It's refreshing to see a
simple computer with a beginner-friendly development environment. It reminds
me of drawing things pixel-by-pixel in QBasic when I was starting out. It's
that kind of thing that really attracted me to programming in the first place.

~~~
cestith
For $49 you could get the much more capable PocketCHIP and for ease of use use
PICO-8 until you're ready to use something else. You'd get color, a key pad,
wireless connectivity, and a Debian-like userspace. Of course, it's ARM and
not Arduino and it isn't the size of a credit card.

~~~
khedoros1
I'd also be getting something with an Allwinner chip in it. I try not to
reward companies that violate copyright law.

If they'd built it around another company's SOC, I might have bought one
already...but maybe not, because the inputs look like they'd be a pain to
actually use.

~~~
cestith
I haven't followed the GPL concerns closely but I've been aware of them. I've
not done the digging to confirm it for myself, but I keep hearing they're
improving.

Here's some articles and forum posts about Allwinner and lemaker and their
efforts to fix their violations.:

[https://lwn.net/Articles/644976/](https://lwn.net/Articles/644976/)
[http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.hardware.netbook.arm.s...](http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.hardware.netbook.arm.sunxi/16956)
[http://raspi.tv/2014/banana-pi-review-first-
impressions#comm...](http://raspi.tv/2014/banana-pi-review-first-
impressions#comment-43818)

Here's the Github account for them, showing several source releases since the
original debacle.:

[https://github.com/allwinner-zh](https://github.com/allwinner-zh)

I'm not running out to buy all the Allwinner kit I can afford, but I do
collect small computers. I have a Pine64 and will probably buy the 11"
Pinetop. I have a CHIP and a PocketCHIP (including the CHIP that came in
that). I also have an Onion2 on the way. These things go nicely with my HP
LX95, LX100, LX200, Omnigo 100 ; Atari Portfolio ; Psion Series 2, Series 3,
Series 3a, Series 5, Series 5MX; Casio Cassiopeia; Toshiba Libretto; Dialog
Flybook; etc.

I was under the impression I was helping the Kickstarter for Next Thing Co.
much more than rewarding Allwinner for what appeared to be past violations of
the GPL that they seem to be addressing. Do you have some information for me
about fresh violations or ongoing reticence about the older ones?

~~~
khedoros1
> I was under the impression I was helping the Kickstarter for Next Thing Co.
> much more than rewarding Allwinner

I feel like it's impossible to do one without doing the other. Maybe the
reason that you'd support the KS is to help out Next Thing, but I can't escape
the thought that ultimately some of my money would be going to Allwinner as
well.

> Do you have some information for me about fresh violations or ongoing
> reticence about the older ones?

I haven't taken the time to actually audit their releases or anything, so I'm
basing my opinion on the older issues, like the CedarX stuff in early 2015.
They claimed to have fixed the code, but there was good evidence that they
just renamed the offending functions and recompiled to hide what they'd done.
Not to mention the "rootmydevice" issue from earlier this year. Even if I
attribute those to sloppiness rather than maliciousness, I wouldn't want
anything designed by them to be part of any kit I actually rely on for
something.

Everyone has their own reasons for buying or not buying things. It sounds like
some Allwinner-based equipment makes a nice addition to your collection, and I
don't begrudge you that (not that it would matter if I did). I'm not a
dedicated hardware collector, and I'm not severely constrained by the price of
a more expensive processor, so I can afford to be ideologically picky. Other
people are in different situations.

~~~
cestith
Is Atmel that much better than Allwinner?

Well, I've got a couple Raspberry Pi devices, too. Those are kind of the
darling of the small Linux device market, but Broadcom has had its run-ins
with the FSF as well.

[http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/43996.html](http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/43996.html)

[http://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?threads/tomato-arm-
gpl-...](http://www.linksysinfo.org/index.php?threads/tomato-arm-gpl-
violations.70666/)

There's Mediatek in this market segment but I've heard they're worse than
Allwinner by quite a bit (both technically and about the GPL, plus being
tight-lipped with tech specs for developers unless you're buying tens of
thousands of units).

Intel, Oracle, VMWare, Aldi, Best Buy, Samsung, Sony, Western Digital (so the
65C816 or 65C02 or... in all those NES and Atari clones at the drug store),
AmLogic, and others have been involved in some alleged violations. Apple, AMD,
and nVidia have not always been great friends of the GPL. Rockchip and
Mediatek are both very closed about their chip specs and may not have any
better record with the GPL either.

So do I buy Broadcom, Intel, Oracle, AMD, nVidia, Samsung, Apple's A8,
Rockchip, Mediatek, or WDC processors? Freescale is now part of NXP, so maybe
them? TI's retired OMAP line? And then I can build my own PCBs and put up a
Kickstarter to hopefully recover the cost of the prototyping... and then get
vilified about something or other.

I hope Allwinner is actually getting better about this. They're not making
much money on my few units. Until I can get OpenRISC, RISC-V, or something
from OpenCores on an SBC at a decent price I'm afraid the options are a bit
limited. I guess I could buy IBM Power or Fujitsu SPARC-64 for larger things,
but for the most part the desktop, workstation, and server markets are clouded
with bad behavior, too.

------
keanutah
I own one of these, and have written a game for it. Definitely a good bit of
fun, and the hardware quality is pretty solid.

------
dleslie
Why this over the CHIP, or even an actual GameBoy with a flash cart?

~~~
nobodyshere
You wouldn't be able to sell simply a modified GameBoy with modified hw/sw
parts. Nintendo would sue you into oblivion.

~~~
dleslie
You can get a Gameboy from just about any old game store; and flash carts are
easy to come by. I have two of these:

[https://www.amazon.com/SMART-x30B2-x30FC-x30E0-x30DC-x30A4/d...](https://www.amazon.com/SMART-x30B2-x30FC-x30E0-x30DC-x30A4/dp/B008B8QO0I)

~~~
derefr
The parent means, _this company_ can't just sell "a Gameboy plus a flash cart"
as their own commercial product. Which is why they created a custom product
instead.

 _You_ , as an end user, certainly can "just" use a gameboy + a flash cart, or
an iOS or Android device, or even (and I would suggest this) code games using
an old console emulator as your runtime and don't worry so much about
hardware. (Emulators for those same consoles _also_ exist for iOS/Android,
after all.)

But _this company_ has other priorities, and so made this.

~~~
dleslie
I ask as a user because I am not a member of that company.

------
rtpg
I tried out this (and WifiBoy ) at Maker Faire Tokyo a couple months back.
It's pretty neat tech, but a bit limiting.

Ive found PICO-8 to be just limiting enough to still offer excellent games,
but this seems a bit more gadgety.

Tbh the killer features with any of these retro consoles would be to have a
good button feel. The buttons used on these are usually pretty weak. I would
be much more excited with a system with a GBA d-pad and buttons.

That and maybe something a bit more powerful than an Arduino. The magic of
PICO-8 with Lua is that your first lines of code are about the game, not
memory book keeping.

~~~
maweki
Pico-8 seems limited by design (as a programming language / virtual machine)
while the other examples are limited by hardware.

This brings the pico-8 experience "on par" with programming games like tis-100
or shenzen IO

------
BHSPitMonkey
I've had one of these for a few weeks now, it's a lot of fun to play with! I
really enjoy programming for such a simple nostalgic platform. My main side
project for it [0] has been porting a little homebrew tunnel game I originally
wrote for the Wii several years back. Other devs have been putting out much
more impressive software [1] and coming up with some great hardware hacks [2]
as well.

It's indeed targeted at hobbyists more than consumers (like the Arduino,
Raspberry Pi, etc) though I feel it has a greater potential for inspiring
folks of all ages to tinker with programming. There's no ugly/scary hardware
to deal with, and the form factor seems to attract adoration from everyone I
show it to.

[0] [https://github.com/BHSPitMonkey/Helii-
Arduboy/blob/master/RE...](https://github.com/BHSPitMonkey/Helii-
Arduboy/blob/master/README.md)

[1] [http://www.team-arg.com/games.html](http://www.team-arg.com/games.html)

[2] [https://youtu.be/bGMHTI9e55Y](https://youtu.be/bGMHTI9e55Y)

------
brilliantcode
I was a bit taken back by it's pricing of $49 USD.

That's almost 70 Canadian dollars. I was expecting something around $19 USD.

In all it's shape or form, this is a _great_ idea, credit card sized handheld
gaming, can be put forgotten until you realize your phone is out of battery,
and you suddenly have nothing to do. Also, I just love the small screen with
it's tiny controllers, I can see myself playing Pokemon Blue on it.

------
anotheryou
I really miss some pins. Not as sexy, but maybe more useful for some hardware
hacks that could use a screen and arrow keys:
[http://gamebuino.com/](http://gamebuino.com/)

------
hoodoof
This is what the BBC microbit should have been.

~~~
jdietrich
Strongly disagree. People learned to program on the ZX81 because it was cool
but essentially useless. It booted directly into a BASIC prompt and came with
a fairly good introductory programming manual. The Spectrum was essentially a
games console that a handful of nerds learned to program on.

Micro:bit is designed like the ZX81, using lessons learned from the Raspberry
Pi. It's a useless toy, but it's a useless toy that is fantastically easy to
program. Hook it up to a computer via USB, go to a URL and it Just Works. Type
some code or drag some visual programming blocks, click "compile" and the
program is running on your micro:bit. If you want to hook up a buzzer or a
switch, you can do it with crocodile clips and one line of code. It's an
incredibly slick onboarding process that is perfectly suited to education.

[http://microbit.org/start/](http://microbit.org/start/)

With a device like the Arduboy, it's too tempting to just play games. To
program it you need to download the Arduino IDE, then install a bunch of
libraries, then fiddle about with settings, then start reading through a bunch
of documentation. With micro:bit you can go from unboxing to hello world in
about five minutes, even if you've never written a line of code in your life.

~~~
hoodoof
The ZX81 had a display. It makes all the difference.

~~~
mavhc
No it didn't, it had a video out socket.

Micro:bit has a display, 2 buttons, tilt and magnet sensors, and a battery
socket for power.

Surely it's like the Acorn BBC, loads of I/O, well designed software, and
people complain it's more expensive than existing systems.

~~~
wolfgke
> Micro:bit has a display,

On

> [http://microbit.org/about/](http://microbit.org/about/)

I only see 25 programmable LEDs, but no display.

~~~
khedoros1
I see a 5x5 display ;-)

------
bateske
Hello from Arduboy! I'm the creator and I love reading comments like this! I
went ahead and made a blog post responding to some of the feedback here.

[http://blog.arduboy.com/arduboy-featured-hacker-
news/](http://blog.arduboy.com/arduboy-featured-hacker-news/)

------
randommmeme
why would they make it so small? its never going to be more than a curiosity
if your hands are all cramped while you play it. it might make some sense if
it were a little cheaper... it would be so much better if they made it much
larger and gave it a larger screen and better buttons. that would be awesome.

------
brink
If only this had bluetooth / WiFi in it. I think it would have made a
wonderful IoT controller.

Oh well... missed opportunity.

~~~
Gracana
Missed opportunity? More like disaster averted. There are a million little
linux widgets out there, and most people just run existing software on them,
because working with embedded linux is complex and tool-heavy. Instead, they
have a cheap and simple little microcontroller that you can program with the
Arduino IDE. Way more approachable.

~~~
illicium
Bluetooth/WiFi doesn't require embedded Linux. The venerable ESP8266 can be
easily programmed through the Arduino IDE.

~~~
eltoozero
"Venerable" implies some worthiness.

ESP8266 is a hacker friendly wifi gadget, for $2, but otherwise garbage.

You get what you pay for.

Also it's wifi only, not bluetooth.

~~~
blhack
In what ways is the ESP garbage?

------
83457
Reminds me of the Dreamcast VMU. If some cool little games I'd get it for a
lower price.

------
desireco42
This is device in search of application. Shame, I would totally buy one if
they could show me good use-case.

Obviously, I would be overjoyed to be proven wrong.

~~~
Splendor
Isn't gaming the use-case?

------
revelation
Such a shame it contains an actual ATmega..

I agree with others that you probably don't want another embedded Linux, but a
M0 or M3 would have been nice.

~~~
simcop2387
Yea I think an ATmega is actually a bad choice because it can't dynamically
load code from somewhere else. It'd be neat to be able to have something like
an SD card or some other form of swapable storage store the code for a game.

~~~
cr0sh
I'm not sure if you are referring to this, but:

[https://github.com/thseiler/embedded/tree/master/avr/2boots](https://github.com/thseiler/embedded/tree/master/avr/2boots)

Basically - there are bootloaders available that can flash from an SD card...

~~~
kbumsik
He might be referring running program directly from an SD card, without need
for flashing. Most of Cortex M MCUs can run program on RAM, which is more
flexible and fast

------
sturmeh
It's pretty awesome (have 2 from Kickstarter) but I don't see the appeal for
anybody but a developer.

------
oftenwrong
Better headline:

"Arduboy, the game system the size of a credit card"

~~~
sctb
Thanks, we've updated the title from just “Arduboy”.

------
pryelluw
Site is offline. Any relevant links?

------
smnplk
Dear Santa...

------
developer12
Have one of these and love it. Game creating community is big and only getting
bigger. Its very small but its fun watching what people create within its
limitations. Recently had a friend order one with a free shipping coupon
NOVEMBER2016.

~~~
TylerE
You didn't do a very good job hiding your astroturf.

Real people don't create an account just to post a coupon code.

