Kevin Bates by no means even imagined he’d be making the identical tiny handheld ceaselessly. 9 years have passed by since his unique Arduboy quietly slipped into pockets like a sneaky bank card, and now he’s launched the FX-C – similar wafer-thin physique, a shiny new USB-C port and only one cable to show button mashing into head-to-head battles.
If you pull the FX-C out of its sleeve, you’ll discover one factor right away: it’s 3.4mm thick and weighs solely 25 grams, with chilly stainless-steel on the again and a reasonably nice wanting matte polycarb in entrance. It’s so skinny that it matches simply right into a pants pocket, however it feels sturdy sufficient to resist just a few subway tiles. The six rubber-domed buttons have an incredible click on to them – just like the previous Recreation Boy from ’88 – and the 128 x 64 OLED display glows vibrant white, with no shades of gray and no anti-aliasing – simply sharp pixels that actually make all of the sprites pop.
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The facility comes from a tiny 180mAh lithium-polymer battery – skinny sufficient to make you surprise how on earth it’s powering something. A full cost will get you round 4-6 hours of playtime, relying on how loud the 4 channel piezo speaker is chirping. Plug the USB-C cable right into a telephone charger and the battery will probably be full in 40 minutes – and for those who neglect about it for a bit, the display is sensible sufficient to go darkish after 30 seconds, however nonetheless retains the battery sipping alongside to the purpose the place you’ll be able to nonetheless boot it up per week later.
Inside is identical ATmega32u4 chip that’s additionally in an Arduino Micro – 32KB of flash, 2.5KB of ram and now 16MB of exterior SPI flash. The additional cupboard space is dwelling to 300 group constructed video games – all rigorously curated by Bates himself. Boot the factor up and also you’ll be offered with a menu that scrolls via crisp cowl artwork. Among the highlights embrace : Castlevania: Arduboy Symphony (the place you get to whip your manner via 40 screens), Hole Seeker (an countless runner with one button wall jumps), TeenyTank (artillery battles that now really occur in actual time towards a pal), and Mystic Lantern (an 8-bit Zelda clone with 50 rooms and boss keys). Each recreation masses in half a second, and for those who maintain Left + Proper + A on the menu to delete you’ll be left with a clean canvas to create your personal sketches.
The USB-C cable accommodates 4 further wires that talk with I²C at 400 kHz, enabling multiplayer performance. Plug in two FX-C items (chances are you’ll use any Thunderbolt 3 connection for this), and a “Hyperlink” image will seem. At the moment, video games like TeenyTank, MicroCheckers, Pace Snake and a co-op mod of Catacombs of the Damned are all multiplayer prepared, and group coders already have one other 20 titles up on the discussion board, with leaderboards saved proper on the gadgets themselves.
The dangerous information is that the Founder’s Version, which has purple buttons and a laser etched serial quantity 001-500, prices $99 direct from arduboy.com. The standard green-button mannequin will quickly be obtainable on Amazon for $89, with free Prime transport. Bates attributes the value enhance to tariffs imposed on Chinese language PCBs.
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