May 8, 2020
~2 minutes
32blit - Retro Inspired Handheld Console
The 32blit was a successful Kickstarter from Sheffield-based (UK) Pimoroni.
Despite its looks it isn’t, primarily, designed to be used for retro gaming, but to encourage new games developers. Pimoroni have begun working on a suite of tutorials, and have a software development kit which will make the process much simpler to get up and running.
However, because it’s intended to be an open development platform, it also means that anything is possible, and there are bound to be some developers who will port over emulators. It’s also likely that some flavour of Linux may be installable at some
- 3.5” 320x340 IPS TFT screen (for improved viewing angles)
- STM32H750 400MHz ARM Cortex-M7 (480MHz, 1MB SRAM, hardware floating-point)
- 32MB flash via QSPI interface which supports XiP (execute-in-place)
- Analogue thumbstick, d-pad, four action buttons and two system buttons
- 0.5W speaker with mono audio power amplifier
- MSA301 triaxial accelerometer
- 1200mAh rechargeable battery (4+ hour usage)
- MicroSD card slot
- Micro-B USB port for programming and charging
Development
Development is still in progress, but the following will be available.
- Open source firmware
- c++ or Lua development including full programming library
- Dozens of tutorials (and hopefully a growing community)
- Free to use sprites, sounds and music designed for the 32blit
- Editing tools (for music, sprites and maps)