RISCBoy is an open-source portable games console, designed from scratch
RISCBoy is an open-source portable game console project that reimagines a Gameboy Advance-style handheld using the RISC-V instruction set architecture. The project provides a complete hardware design written in Verilog, intended for implementation on iCE40 FPGAs using open-source toolchains.
Why it matters
It demonstrates the viability of using open-source FPGA toolchains and RISC-V architecture for hobbyist hardware design, bridging the gap between retro-gaming nostalgia and modern open-hardware engineering.
RISCBoy is an open-source portable games console, designed from scratch. This includes:
It is a Gameboy Advance from a parallel universe where RISC-V existed in 2001. A love letter to the handheld consoles from my childhood, and a 3AM drunk text to the technology that powered them.
The design is written in synthesisable Verilog 2005, and is intended to fit onto an iCE40-HX8k FPGA. This is a LUT4-based FPGA with 7680 logic elements, so fitting a 32 bit games console requires a crowbar and some vaseline, or perhaps just careful design. The HX8k was once the largest FPGA targeted by the open-source Icestorm FPGA toolchain, but that toolchain has since moved on to greater things .
More detailed information can be found in the documentation .
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