Pokitto: Open-source pocket gaming console | Hacker News Reader

Pokitto: Open-source pocket gaming console

pokitto.com

93 pointsrendall32 comments

I have this, and it has a serious problem: the screen was built to be used in horizontal layout so the filters on it work well in horizontal but when looked at in vertical there is a VERY bad bading effect because the left and right eye don't get the same image.

It's basically unusable.

That said the injection plastic case is great, but the buttons are so flimsy they either push the buttons all the time, and if you trim them they almost fall out of the case.

The best option for small handheld microcontroller console is this: https://shop.pimoroni.com/products/picosystem

But the piezo speaker is bad.

And it does not have a mature dev. environement on Windows and no emulator/client unless you painstakingly consider blit-32 an option.

Also no connected features, so no multiplayer.

The .uf2 design is great for consumers but not very good for developers, we need some sort of filesystem.

That is the biggest flaw of the QSPI flash: it sounds great but in pratice it's VERY confusing. You basically need to hardcode what runs from flash and what runs from RAM, I'm still not sure how to do this...

I really hope there are some retro consoles can play Pico-8 games natively, but seems not yet?

Problem with pico-8 is lua needs like 2MB RAM and it's too slow for a microcontroller.

Keep in mind this thing is the graphics card... the framebuffer takes up alot of those 264K...

But the original Celeste was ported to the Picosystem and released a few days ago:

https://pixelpunker.itch.io/celeste-picosystem

It's based on this C port:

https://github.com/lemon32767/ccleste

There is the GameShell by ClockworkPi, but their screen choice was rather unfortunate. Can't scale up to 2x pico8 games without squash/trim on vertical axis (can't recall exactly which of the two it is)

Also the Gameforce Chi, which has a better screen for it but library management is annoying (when you play a game it downloads the cart, and the cart in the file system goes right next to splore. You can put them in a folder but it doesnt automatically do this when downloading a game, so theres regular maintenance involved)

The Pocket CHIP could run Pico-8 games.

I use an RG351V for this purpose, but lot of retro console are already able to play pico-8, either natively with the official binaries (like on the whole RG351 line) or with Fake-08 for Miyoo consoles and hacked 3DS/Switch/Vita.

Theres also the Arduboy, which seems to have quite an active community.

For me though, the lack of an on-device library (I'm assuming in the case of Pokkito as the site is down, but these devices generally only hold one game at a time) makes them too tedious to bother with. I had the Arduboy for a bit and yeh it was fun but I barely tried any of the new games made for it because it was just too much of a hassle to manually download and upload the games to the device, as compared to something like splore on pico-8 where its all on-system.

There were actual Nokia phones (like C2-05) with the same polarizer orientation problem of the LCD.

And the irony is that dirt-cheap "Arduino" IPS screens from AliExpress do not have this issue.

The original Odroid Go is an excellent ESP32 based system, has more memory and an expansion header.

https://wiki.odroid.com/odroid_go/odroid_go

It isn't produced anymore, but it wouldn't be difficult to make a clone.

It's not an opensource gaming console, but it's a microcontroller dev kit, that can also play games.

If you want a gaming console, there are many linux and android based handhelds that can be bought for $50-$150 all over the internet, and their main goal is playing games. This is just another "better arduino" in a case.

The question for any "gaming console" like this is "what advantage does this have over a jailbroken console of the otherwise proprietary kind". Anyone who'd use one of these things probably got a Vita or an early Switch already and has the technical knowledge to follow jailbreak instructions for them.

Someone stole my Vita and my Switch is not old enough… If I can get this on Amazon it would be awesome (for pokitto)

This is an IoT teaching tool that is designed to be gameable (mbed.org Scratch-type development, what looks like GPIO pins).

Looks fun but it's not the only thing of its kind.

Well,for one Vita is under-powered for some systems (like SNES). It has very good PlayStation 1 emulation performance though, thanks to its awesome PopStation emulator (proprietary emulator develop for Sony for PSP, that also runs on Vita thanks to backwards compatibility).

Switch is much better of course, however only the old non-Mariko units can be jailbroken without modchips, and while I do like the hybrid design of Switch, I still think Switch as a handheld is bigger and heavier than I want for a portable console. This would be solved with Switch Lite, but all Switch Lites are Mariko.

I quite like my RG350 to play old games (playing Final Fantasy VI right now), so much that my Switch is on its case for quite some time.

It looks like the Pokitto isn't even as powerful as a 3DS, and every 3DS is fully hackable. And a 3DS is nowhere near as hard to find as a Vita.

A while ago I dabbled a bit in GBA homebrew development. I have to say that many of the modern open source handhelds aren't all that interesting from a homebrew development point of view either.

Devices like the GBA, the SNES etc. have specialized sprite and tile map co-processors that are an interesting challenge to use, especially due to the very limited CPU and memory. Effects like Mode 7 perspective requires you to catch a interrupt to change the affine transform of the tile map at every scanline. That's fun!

Many of the modern devices are just a fast CPU and an RGB framebuffer.

I completely agree.. it's really interesting to have the limitation and have to work around them.

Personally, I feel I can make a nice of-the-era game on an old console like the gameboy and feel accomplished. Anything simplistic, or rather, games made with a low artistic skill (at least that I try to make) on newer hardware just feels cheap/tacky to me.

Not sure if I'm getting across what I mean, but having 8x8 sprites and limited colour palette means I don't have _as_ much to worry about, so trying to design a semi-alright looking player sprite doesn't take much effort (not that some people don't put in a lot of time and do incredible things with it)

If powered by ESP32 or Arduino, there is some old school appeal, specially when doing bare metal.

Otherwise one is better off getting a used Android, a gamepad adapter, and just code away with the NDK/AGK.

Hi all!

I made an account just to come and comment on this thread. My name is Jonne, I am the creator of Pokitto.

1. Screen orientation. Unfortunately, the screen orientation is 90 degrees to the intended orientation. Some people are more affected by this than others. Some people say its unusable, 2000+ units have been sold so most people think its usable. Other similar consoles for example Gamebuino Meta and Adafruit PyGamer have this same orientation issue. Bottom line is this: tft displays in the 1.8"-2.2" size are manufactured for feature phones and their orientation comes from that use. If the volumes of Pokitto were 250k pieces, I might be able to get a screen with the coreect orientation. But, as it is, this is the situation.

2. IPS screens. At the time when Pokitto was made, IPS in 2.0" was not really available and I am still seeing Arduino modules in the 15€ range. If you realistically think about the cost of components, you have to 3 x cost in the price to cover expenses. The TFT's for Pokitto were <2 usd at the time when the project Kickstarted, no IPS screen comes close.

3. What is the "purpose" of such a device? Its cheap and cheerful. It allows you to see the actual bits and the whole works, you have complete control of the hardware. Pokitto runs on a 36kB microcontroller that was designed to run microwave ovens. There is no operating system, there is no GPU, no floating point unit. Just an ARM Cortex M0+ overclocked to an inch of its life. Its ridiculous, pointless and fun. If you want a better device, there are a gazillion linux emulator handhelds - but very few with the kind of zany userbase we have.

4. Wifi? Watch this space.

And hey, thanks for the interest, and I will answer any questions you want to ask.

3D files for printing the case will be added to the site.

Related: Odroid Go. It used an ESP32 and as such had WiFi + Bluetooth, but is discontinued.

Wow, this is really neat! I wish I would have known about this before it was discontinued!

You can still find some for cheap on ebay. I really recommend it.

It seems like it was discontinued in favor of a successor, the Odroid Go Advanced which was discontinued in favor of Odroid Go Super: https://www.hardkernel.com/shop/odroid-go-super-dim-gray/

They claim 10h battery for ODroid Go Super! I wonder how difficult is it too develop a game for it though... I've had a dream of making/playing an MMO that's exclusive to a handheld console.

Although I would prefer something even low power/more battery power, maybe even a monochrome display. Anything so that you can reach the point where you don't have to think about the battery.

The fun part of the Odroid Go and the Go Advanced was that it was DIY. So if you have a kid, you could spend time building it together then work on programming it together... Losing the DIY makes it less interesting and fun I feel.

Am i blind? The site doesn't seem to mention anywhere what sort of CPU/SoC/etc or other specs like screen resolution this has. I guess from the magazine shot it has an ARM, but even looking around the wiki, shop, etc i couldn't find any other information about it.

we're both blind, was the exit door for me..

This doesn't look very open. I can find the schematics, but no pcb files or files for 3d printing the case. From the specs thread, it also looks like the bootloader is closed source.

https://talk.pokitto.com/uploads/short-url/yZTeNdq73SXg5qneZ...

> exit

The specs are there, under Wiki / Hardware specifications [0]

- CPU/Soc: LPC11U6x (NXP ARM Cortex-M0+ processor, running at 48 MHz)

- 256kB program memory – 36kB RAM – 4kB EEPROM

- 2.0″ Color TFT, max res. 220×176

- 8-bit DAC and 8-Bit PWM sound

- 600 mAh lipo battery with built-in charger

0: https://talk.pokitto.com/t/wiki-2-pokitto-technical-specific...

I'm a little disappointed there's no Wi-Fi. Local multiplayer was one of the best things about retro gaming.

I think WiFi/BT should be the default on open source things these days.

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