The Nintendo Game Boy is one of the best-selling game consoles of all time, not because of impressive technical specs, but because it was just so much fun to play. The simple, pocketable design and the library of great games that you could just pick up and play for a few minutes here and there, made it a favorite of gamers everywhere throughout the 1990s.
Those gamers have now grown up and have more disposable income to spend on their hobbies, so the Game Boy is getting a new lease on life. And that doesn’t just mean through emulation—all sorts of Game Boy-inspired products are now popping up. One of the more popular offerings of late is the LEGO Game Boy set.
This custom GPU drives the display (📷: LCLDIY)
But as cool as this LEGO Game Boy looks sitting on a shelf, that is about all it’s good for after it has been built. That doesn’t sit right with a lot of gamers who actually want to play their Game Boy, so a number of hardware hackers have taken the time to stuff electronics in between those plastic bricks to make that possible.
A Chinese maker that goes by the handle LCLDIY loved the idea of a playable LEGO Game Boy, but he had something even bigger in mind—literally. LCLDIY made a giant-sized LEGO Game Boy that blurs the lines between a game console and a display piece.
This is not just some 3D-printed shell with a computer monitor or LCD TV slapped inside. LCLDIY used a vintage electroluminescent display with a warm amber glow that is reminiscent of the appearance of a real Game Boy screen. The shell itself is not standard either. Rather than using a traditional 3D printer, LCLDIY used a light-curing resin printer for a smooth, perfect case.
It can also be hooked up to gamepads (📷: LCLDIY)
Inside the case, there is a vintage Intel 845 motherboard to drive the display and Game Boy emulation software. Now, an electroluminescent display is not exactly normal for a desktop computer to interface with, so there were no existing ports that could communicate with it. For this reason, LCLDIY developed a custom graphics card centered around the 65540 Flat Panel VGA Controller chip. This made it simple to send the display all of the unique synchronization, clock, and data signals it needs. The build was finished off with some spray paint to get the color just right, arcade-style buttons, and transfer stickers for labels and logos.
LCLDIY has made the design files and the graphics card BIOS freely available to anyone who would like to replicate the work. Check out the project write-up for all the details.
