Keymu: An Emulation Console for Your Keychain

If you’re of a certain age, you remember the Game Boy and other portable consoles appearing at school and your neighborhood. At the time it was amazing that the power of a gaming console could be reduced to something that could fit in the palm of your hand. Now, nearly 30 years later, technology has advanced to the point where one hacker, Vincent Buso, was able to reduce the Game Boy Color — along with several other systems and a library of games — into a size that can literally act as a keychain.

Buso, after seeing another tiny Game Boy device, decided to make his own with several improvements. First, instead of using a Raspberry Pi, or an ESP-32 chip, which was used in the other keychain emulator, he used an as Intel Edison module. This device combines a tiny form factor with a powerful 500Mhz dual core processor, perfect for the build specs-wise. He did, however, have to do some extra work to get emulation to work correctly on this platform, a challenge he gladly took on.

The device consists of a 1.5” 128 x 128 pixel OLED display, and features a directional pad, as well as an array of suitable buttons for proper game control. Importantly, the screen folds into a clamshell configuration when not in use, protecting it from the harsh environment of a modern pocket!

[h/t: Boing Boing]