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arduboy.md
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arduboy.md
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# Arduboy
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Arduboy is an [Arduino](arduino.md)-based, extremely tiny indie/"retro" [open gaming console](open_console.md), about the size of a credit card, with monochrome (black&white) display; it was one of the earliest during the boom of such devices and is at the same time among the best in many aspects (construction, hardware, community, games, price, ...). Not only is it one of the top open consoles out there, it is also one of the most [minimalist](minimalism.md) ones and a great way to get into low level [programming](programming.md), learning [C](c.md), [embedded](embedded.md) development etc. Even for a normie not intending to program it it's just a super cool thing to play old nostalgic games on and flex with around friends. [We](lrs.md) can really recommend getting Arduboy ASAP to anyone remotely interested in this kind of stuff. Arduboy is a bit similar to the original [Gamebuino](gamebuino.md) (the one with monochrome screen), it may have been inspired by it. The official website is at https://www.arduboy.com/.
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Arduboy is an [Arduino](arduino.md)-based, extremely tiny indie/"retro" handheld [open gaming console](open_console.md), about the size of a credit card, with monochrome (black&white) display; it was one of the earliest during the open console boom and is at the same time among the best in many aspects (construction, hardware, community, games, price, ...). Not only is it one of the top open consoles out there, it is also one of the most [minimalist](minimalism.md) and a great way to get into low level [programming](programming.md), learning [C](c.md), [embedded](embedded.md) development etc. Even for a normie not intending to program it it's just a super cool toy to play old nostalgic games on and flex with around friends. [We](lrs.md) can really recommend getting Arduboy ASAP to anyone remotely interested in this kind of stuff. Arduboy is a bit similar to the original [Gamebuino](gamebuino.md) (the one with monochrome screen), it may have been inspired by it. The official website is https://www.arduboy.com/.
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```
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_________
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||ARDUBOY||
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||_______||
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| _||_ O|
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| ",," O |
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| _||_ /O |
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| ";;" O/ |
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|_________|
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```
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@ -19,15 +19,15 @@ Arduboy has a number of [hack](hacking.md)/mods, both official and unofficial, s
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{ Let's make it clear I AM NOT PAID for this article :D Reading through it it sounds like I'm shilling it super hard but it's really just that I like Arduboy, it was my first open console and I owe it my change in direction in programming. Of course, Arduboy does have its flaws, it's still something designed for profit, it shills [open soars](open_source.md), forums need [JavaScript](js.md) and it's very possible it will become more spoiled in the future, however at the moment it's something quite nice with the amount of capitalist [bullshit](bullshit.md) being still tolerable. That may change but as of writing this it still seems to be so. ~drummyfish }
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Arduboy is not even very expensive, one can even build it at home, there is documentation. The one you buy has excellent construction, it doesn't suffer from any shortcomings often seen in other such devices (hard to press buttons, display visibility angles, ... ), the monochrome display is tiny but very good, with great contrast, it is joy to just look at; some people even managed to "fake" multiple shades of gray by fast pixel flickering.
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Arduboy is not very expensive, one can even build it at home, there is documentation. The one you buy has excellent construction, it doesn't suffer from any shortcomings often seen in other such devices (hard to press buttons, display visibility angles, ... ), the monochrome display is tiny but very good, with great contrast, it is joy to just look at; some people even managed to "fake" multiple shades of gray by fast pixel flickering. Seeing games on this display is somehow magical.
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As can be judged from the name, Arduboy is based on **[Arduino](arduino.md)** (the famous [free hardware](free_hardware.md) platform), seems like Arduino Leonardo. The console is very small not only physically but also by its [hardware](hardware.md) specification, and that even compared to other open consoles -- Arduboy only has **2.5 KB of [RAM](ram.md)** which is really low, however this is good for learning [good programming](lrs.md) and testing minimalist software; [less is more](less_is_more.md). Besides this there is 1 KB of EEPROM (for things like game saves, ...) and 32 KB of flash memory (memory for the program itself -- as RAM is so low, one often tries to store data here). The CPU is 8bit ATmega32u4 clocked at **16 MHz** (also not very much, good for minimalism). It's an [AVR](avr.md) CPU which has a **Harvard architecture**, i.e. program resides in different memory than the data; this can be something new to PC programmers as you have to think what (and how) to place into the program memory (flash) vs the [RAM](ram.md) (as there is very little RAM); basically you have to use the `PROGMEM` macro to tell Arduino you want something placed in the flash (however that data will then be read-only; the whole PROGMEM thing can be a bit of annoyance, but in the end this is how small computers work). There are **6 buttons**: arrows, *A* and *B* and that's it -- one often has to think of how to make clever controls with this limited number of buttons (another kind of minimalist exercise). The display is **monochrome, 128x64 pixels**. For programming one typically uses Arduino IDE and the official Arduboy library ([FOSS](foss.md)), but it's easy to do everything from the [command line](cli.md). There is also some kind of speaker for making beeps. Arduboy also has a good **[emulator](emulator.md)**, something that greatly helps with development which also isn't standard in the open console world.
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As can be judged from the name, Arduboy is based on **[Arduino](arduino.md)** (the famous [free hardware](free_hardware.md) platform), seems like Arduino Leonardo. The console is very small not only physically but also by its [hardware](hardware.md) specification, and that even compared to other open consoles -- Arduboy only has **2.5 KB of [RAM](ram.md)** which is really low, however this is good for learning [good programming](lrs.md) and testing minimalist software; [less is more](less_is_more.md). Besides this there is 1 KB of [EEPROM](eeprom.md) (for things like game saves, ...) and 32 KB of flash memory (memory for the program itself -- as RAM is so low, one often tries to store data here). The [CPU](cpu.md) is 8bit ATmega32u4 clocked at **16 MHz** (also not very much, good for minimalism). It's an [AVR](avr.md) CPU which has a **Harvard architecture**, i.e. program resides in different memory than the data; this can be something new to PC programmers as you have to think what (and how) to place into the program memory (flash) vs the [RAM](ram.md) (as there is very little RAM); basically you have to use the `PROGMEM` macro to tell Arduino you want something placed in the flash (however that data will then be read-only; the whole PROGMEM thing can be a bit of annoyance, but in the end this is how small computers work). The vanilla version has no SD card. There are **6 buttons**: arrows, *A* and *B* and that's it -- one often has to think of how to make clever controls with this limited number of buttons (another kind of minimalist exercise). The display is **monochrome, 128x64 pixels**. For programming one typically uses Arduino IDE and the official Arduboy library ([FOSS](foss.md)), but it's easy to do everything from the [command line](cli.md). There is also some kind of speaker for making beeps. Arduboy also has a good **[emulator](emulator.md)**, something that greatly helps with development which also isn't standard in the open console world.
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Arduboy way designed by Kevin Bates through Kickstarter in 2015, He still keeps improving it and regularly gets involved in discussions on the official forums, that's pretty cool, he shares details and ideas about what he's currently doing, he gets involved in discussing [hacks](hacking.md) etc. The community is also very nice and greatly active itself -- yes, there are probably some rules on the forums, most people are absolute uber noobs, but it just seems like politics, furriness and similar poison just doesn't get discussed there, everyone just shares games, advice on programming etc., it's pretty bearable. In this it's similar to [Pokitto](pokitto.md) -- there the community is also nice, active, with the creator getting involved a lot.
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**Games**, mostly made by the users themselves, can either be found on the official website or in Erwin's Arduboy game collection (https://arduboy.ried.cl/) which as of writing this lists **something over 300 games** -- some are pretty impressive, like Arduventure, a pokemon-look-alike RPG game with quite huge world (very impressive for such tiny amount of memory), MicroCity or various [raycasting](raycasting.md) 3Dish games. If you don't have Arduboy yet, you can play any game in the emulator (which even runs in the browser), however the experience of playing on the small device cannot indeed be replicated. The console can only hold one game at a time, so you always have to upload another one through USB if you want to switch, though the Arduboy FX mod addresses this by adding additional game memory to the console. Game progress is saved in EEPROM so you shouldn't lose your save states by uploading a new game (unless that game carelessly uses the same space in EEPROM for its own savestates). Great many of the games are [FOSS](foss.md), i.e. come with a free [license](license.md) or at least with the source code, only a minority has secret source code. Some [LRS](lrs.md) software run on Arduboy, e.g. [SAF](saf.md), so also games like [microTD](utd.md) and [smolchess](smallchesslib.md), though for example [Anarch](anarch.md) are too much for this small hardware. Comun [C](c.md) interpreter also ran on Arduboy.
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**Games**, mostly made by the users themselves, can either be found on the official website or in Erwin's Arduboy game collection (https://arduboy.ried.cl/) which as of writing this lists **something over 300 games** -- some are pretty impressive, like Arduventure, a pokemon-look-alike RPG game with quite huge world (very impressive for such tiny amount of memory), MicroCity, Catacombs of the Damned or various other similar [raycasting](raycasting.md) 3Dish games. If you don't have Arduboy yet, you can play any game in the emulator (which even runs in the browser), however the experience of playing on the small device cannot indeed be replicated. The console can only hold one game at a time, so you always have to upload another one through USB if you want to switch, though the Arduboy FX mod addresses this by adding additional game memory to the console. Game progress is saved in EEPROM so you shouldn't lose your save states by uploading a new game (unless that game carelessly uses the same space in EEPROM for its own savestates). Great many of the games are [FOSS](foss.md), i.e. come with a free [license](license.md) or at least with the source code, only a minority has secret source code. Some [LRS](lrs.md) software run on Arduboy, e.g. [SAF](saf.md), so also games like [microTD](utd.md) and [smolchess](smallchesslib.md), though for example [Anarch](anarch.md) is too much for this small hardware. [Comun](comun.md) [C](c.md) interpreter also ran on Arduboy.
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**How [free](free_software.md) is it?** Quite a lot, though probably not 100% (if spying is your concern then this small thing probably won't even be capable of trying to hurt you this way). Arduboy Schematics are available { Not sure about license. ~drummyfish }, forums have tons of additional documentation and tutorials, Arduboy library is free licensed (BSD 3 clause), Arduino itself also uses free licenses (though of course it won't likely be free down to individual transistors...), games are very often free too. Being a minimalist computer there is a great deal of practical freedom. All in all, it's one of the most "overall" free things you can get.
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**How [free](free_software.md) is it?** Quite a lot, though probably not 100% (if spying is your concern then know this small thing probably won't even be capable of trying to hurt you this way). Arduboy Schematics are available { Not sure about license. ~drummyfish }, forums have tons of additional documentation and tutorials, Arduboy library is free licensed (BSD 3 clause), Arduino itself also uses free licenses (though of course it won't likely be free down to individual transistors...), games are very often free too. Being a minimalist computer there is a great deal of practical freedom. All in all, it's one of the most "overall" free things you can get.
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# Holy War
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Holy war is a long passionate argument over a choice (often between two options) that touches an issue which is within given community deemed controversial and "religious", which to an outsider typically seems like a childish, hard to understand rant about an insignificant thing. In technology circles holy wars revolve e.g. around [operating systems](os.md), [programming languages](programming_language.md), [licenses](license.md), source code formatting etc. Such a war separates people into almost religious groups that sometimes argue to death about details such as what name something should be given, very much resembling traditional disagreements between religions and their churches. In holy wars people tend to defend whichever side they stand on to the death and can get emotional when discussing the topic. Some examples of holy wars are (in brackets indicated the side taken by [LRS](lrs.md)):
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Holy war is a long passionate argument over a choice (many times between two options) that touches an issue deemed controversial and/or "religious" within given community; to an outsider this may seem like a childish, hard to understand rant about an insignificant thing. In [technology](tech.md) circles holy wars revolve e.g. around [operating systems](os.md), [text editors](text_editor.md), [programming languages](programming_language.md), [licenses](license.md), source code formatting etc. Such a war separates people into almost religious groups that sometimes argue to death about details such as what name something should be given, very much resembling traditional disagreements between religions and their churches -- you would think that people being on the same ship (e.g. all being promoters of [free software](free_software.md)) would at least get along better with each other than with outsiders but no, great many times these people hate each other over quite small details, though there is often a good reason too, just hard to spot to those without deeper insight (a choice regarding minor detail may tell a lot about that who makes it). In holy wars people tend to defend whichever side they stand on to the beyond grave and can get emotional when discussing the topic, leading to flame wars, [ragequits](ragequit.md), [Hitler](hitler.md) arguments etc. Some examples of holy wars are (in brackets indicated the side taken by [LRS](lrs.md)):
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- **[tabs](tab.md) vs spaces** (spaces)
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- **[vim](vim.md) vs [emacs](emacs.md)** (vim)
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- **[free software](free_software.md) vs [open source](open_source.md)** (free software)
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- **[Chrome](chrome.md) vs [Firefox](firefox.md)**, and other browsers
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- **[Java](java.md) vs [C++](cpp.md)**, and other [programming languages](programming_language.md) ([C](c.md))
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- **[vim](vim.md) vs [emacs](emacs.md) vs [acme](acme.md) and other text editors** (vim)
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- **[free software](free_software.md) vs [open source](open_source.md) vs [proprietary](proprietary.md) vs whatever else** (free software)
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- **[Chrome](chrome.md) vs [Firefox](firefox.md)**, and other browsers (none of this bloated shit)
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- **[Java](java.md) vs [C++](cpp.md), [Lisp](lisp.md) vs [Forth](forth.md) and other [programming languages](programming_language.md)** ([C](c.md), [comun](comun.md))
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- **[curly brackets on separate lines or not](programming_style.md)**, and other [style](programming_style.md) choices
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- **[KDE](kde.md) vs [GNOME](gnome.md)** (neither, both are [bloat](bloat.md))
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- **pronunciation of [gif](gif.md) as "gif" vs "jif"**
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- **[Windows](windows.md) vs [Mac](mac.md)** (neither, this is a normie holy war)
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- **"[GNU](gnu.md)/Linux" vs "[Linux](linux.md)"**
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- **"[GNU](gnu.md)/Linux" vs "[Linux](linux.md)"** (GNU/linux)
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- **[copyleft](copyleft.md) vs [permissive](permissive.md)** (permissive, [public domain](public_domain.md))
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- **[AMD](amd.md) vs [Intel](intel.md)**
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- **[AMD](amd.md) vs [NVidia](nvidia.md)**
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- **[window managers](wm.md)**
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- **[Metric](metric_system.md) vs [Imperial](imperial_units.md) units** (metric)
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- **Star Trek vs Star Wars**, and other franchise wars
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- **Pepsi vs Coca Cola**, and other brand wars
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- **[Quake](quake.md) vs Unreal Tournament**, and similar gaming shit
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- **[gopher](gopher.md) vs [gemini](gemini.md)** (gopher)
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- ...
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Things like cats vs dogs or sci-fi vs fantasy may or may not be a holy war, there is a bit of a doubt in the fact that one can easily like both and/or not be such a diehard fan of one or the other. A subject of holy war probably has to be something that doesn't allow too much of this.
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Things like [cats](cat.md) vs dogs or sci-fi vs fantasy may or may not be a holy war, there is a bit of a doubt in the fact that one can easily like both and/or not be such a diehard fan of one or the other. A subject of holy war probably has to be something that doesn't allow too much of this. Maybe a controversy of its own could be the very topic of "what is a holy war" in itself.
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{ Open consoles are how I got into [suckless](suckless.md) programming, they taught me about the low-level, optimizations and how to actually program efficiently on very limited hardware. I recommend you grab one of these. ~drummyfish }
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Open consoles (also indie handhelds etc.) are tiny [GameBoy](gameboy.md)-like [gaming](game.md) consoles mostly powered by [free software](free_software.md) and [free hardware](free_hardware.md), which have relatively recently (some time after 2015) seen a small boom. Examples include [Arduboy](arduboy.md), [Pokitto](pokitto.md) or [Gamebuino](gamebuino.md). These are **NOT** to be confused with the [Raspberry Pi](rpi.md) (and similar) handhelds that run GameBoy/PS1/DOS [emulators](emulator.md) but rather custom, mostly [FOSS](foss.md) platforms running mostly their own community made [homebrew](homebrew.md) games. Open consoles are also similar to the old consoles/computers such as [NES](nes.md), [GameBoy](gameboy.md) etc., however again there is a difference in being more indie, released more recently and being "open", directly made for tinkering, so it's e.g. much easier to program them (old consoles/computers very often require some unofficial hacks, obscure libraries, gcc patches etc. to just get your code working).
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Open consoles (also indie handhelds etc.) are tiny [GameBoy](gameboy.md)-like [gaming](game.md) consoles mostly powered by [free software](free_software.md) and [free hardware](free_hardware.md), which have relatively recently (some time after 2015) seen a small boom. Examples include [Arduboy](arduboy.md), [Pokitto](pokitto.md) or [Gamebuino](gamebuino.md). These are **NOT** to be confused with the [Raspberry Pi](rpi.md) (and similar) handhelds that run GameBoy/PS1/DOS [emulators](emulator.md) (though some open consoles may use e.g. the RP2040 Raspberry pi processor) but rather custom, mostly [FOSS](foss.md) platforms running mostly their own community made [homebrew](homebrew.md) games. Open consoles are also similar to the old consoles/computers such as [NES](nes.md), [GameBoy](gameboy.md) etc., however again there is a difference in being more indie, released more recently and being "open", directly made for tinkering, so it's e.g. much easier to program them (old consoles/computers very often require some unofficial hacks, obscure libraries, gcc patches etc. to just get your code working).
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In summary, open consoles are:
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- `-` = discontinued
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| name | CPU |RAM (K)| ROM (K)| display | year | notes |
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| --------------------------- | --------- | ----- | ------ | ------------ | ---- | ------------------- |
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| ------------------------------- | --------- | ----- | ------ | ------------ | ---- | ------------------- |
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|[Arduboy](arduboy.md) |8b 16 MHz | 2.5 | 32 | 64x32 1b | 2015 | * A C +, tiny |
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|[Gamebuino](gamebuino.md) |8b 16 MHz | 2 | 32 | 84x48 1b | 2014 | + A -, SD |
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|[Pokitto](pokitto.md) |32b 48 MHz | 36 | 256 | 220x176 | 2018 |* C +, ext. hats, SD |
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|[Nibble](nibble.md) |32b 160 MHz| 80 | 4000 | 128x128 | 2021 |A, AAA bat. |
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|[UzeBox](uzebox.md) |8b 28 MHz | 4 | 64 | 360x240 | 2008 |C, + |
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|[Tiny Arcade](tiny_arcade.md) |32b | | | | |A |
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|[Thumby](thumby.md) |32b 133 MHz| 264 | 2000 | 72x40 | 2022 |RPI (RP2040) |
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|[Thumby](thumby.md) |32b 133 MHz| 264 | 2000 | 72x40 1b | 2022 |RPI (RP2040) |
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|[Pocket Arcade](pocket_arcase.md)| | | | | | |
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|Ringo/[MakerPhone](makerphone.md)|32b 160 MHz| 520 | 4000 | 160x128 | 2018 | A -, phone, SD |
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|[Agon](agon.md) |8b 18 MHz | 512 | | 640x480 | | |
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TODO: Retro Game Tiny, Adafruit PyGamer, ... see also https://github.com/ESPboy-edu/awesome-indie-handhelds
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# Pokitto
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Pokitto is a very nice educational [open gaming console](open_console.md) friendly to [hacking](hacking.md) and [FOSS](foss.md). It is also very family friendly, aiming to be used as an educational device for kids on schools, which doesn't at all take away any of its value for hardcore hackers. Its website is https://www.pokitto.com/.
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Pokitto is a very nice educational [open gaming console](open_console.md) friendly to [hacking](hacking.md) and [FOSS](foss.md). It is also very family friendly, aiming to be used as an educational device for kids on schools, which doesn't at all take away any of its value for hardcore hackers. Its website is https://www.pokitto.com/. As of writing this Pokitto is unavailable for purchase as a new version is being developed.
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Its great advantage is its great active and friendly community that's constantly writing software, documenting Pokitto and helping newcomers.
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Its great advantage is its nice, active and friendly community that's constantly writing software, documenting Pokitto and helping newcomers. There have even appeared a few issues of Pokitto magazine.
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The console was created by Jonne Valola from Finland. He started the project on Kickstarter on April 28 2017, pledged over $27000 and released Pokitto in February 2018. { Jonne is a really nice guy who loves the project, puts his soul into the project and always personally helps people and shares technical details of the console. ~drummyfish }
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**How [free](free_software.md) is Pokitto?** Quite freedom friendly, but not nearly 100% free; It is made out of [proprietary](proprietary.md) hardware, but it's quite [KISS](kiss.md), the Pokitto library, emulator and most tools as well as many games are [FOSS](foss.md), however the library contains a few proprietary pieces of code (short vendor source code without license), though these are almost certainly not harmful and could easily be replaced. Schematics and printable STL files are available, though license seems to be non-present. No Pokitto trademarks were surprisingly found during brief search.
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Downsides of Pokitto are that the community is an [open source](open_source.md) community rather than [free software](free_software.md) one, purists like us will find they lean towards [bloated](bloat.md) solutions even though the technical limitation of the console largely prevent their implementation. The web forums runs on [discourse](discourse.md) and requires [JavaScript](js.md) for interactivity. [Discord](discord.md) is also actively used for communication, even though some community members bridged it to free alternatives. The official library is relatively bloated and even contains some small pieces of unlicensed code from the MCU manufacturer -- they are very simple assembly snippets that may be easily replacaeble, but we should be cautious even about this. Anyway, a reasonably dedicated programmer might create a suckless Pokitto library without greater problems.
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**Downsides** of Pokitto are that the community is an [open source](open_source.md) community rather than [free software](free_software.md) one, purists like us will find they lean towards [bloated](bloat.md) solutions even though the technical limitation of the console largely prevent their implementation. The web forums runs on [discourse](discourse.md) and requires [JavaScript](js.md) for interactivity. [Discord](discord.md) is also actively used for communication, even though some community members bridged it to free alternatives. The official library is relatively bloated and even contains some small pieces of unlicensed code from the [MCU](mcu.md) manufacturer -- they are very simple assembly snippets that may be easily replacaeble, but we should be cautious even about this. Anyway, a reasonably dedicated programmer might create a suckless Pokitto library without greater problems.
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Some quite nice [hacks](hacking.md) were achieved with Pokitto, e.g. using it as a display for a PC or even running [GameBoy](gameboy.md) games on it -- this was done thank to a small [FOSS](foss.md) GameBoy emulator and a tool that packs this emulator along with selected GameBoy ROM into a Pokitto executable -- this of course comes with some limitations, e.g. on sound or game size. Yes, Pokitto quite comfortably runs [Anarch](anarch.md).
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@ -20,6 +20,8 @@ Wikipedia was created by [Jimmy Wales](jimmy_wales.md) and [Larry Sanger](larry_
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There exist [forks](fork.md) and alternatives to Wikipedia. Simple English Wikipedia can offer a simpler alternative to sometimes overly complicated articles on the main English Wikipedia. [Citizendium](citizendium.md) is a similar online encyclopedia co-founded by [Larry Sanger](larry_sanger.md), a co-founder of Wikipedia itself, which is however [proprietary](proprietary.md) ([NC](nc.md) license). Citizendium's goal is to improve on some weak points of Wikipedia such as its reliability or quality of writing. [Justapedia](justapedia.md) is a recently spawned Wikipedia fork. [Metapedia](metapedia.md) and [Infogalactic](infogalactic.md) are a Wikipedia forks that are written from a more [rightist](left_right.md)/neutral point of view. [Infogalactic](infogalactic) is also a Wikipedia fork that tries to remove the [pseudoleftist](pseudoleft.md) bullshit etc. Encyclopedia Britannica can also be used as a nice resource: its older versions are already [public domain](public_domain.md) and can be found e.g. at [Project Gutenberg](gutenberg.md), and there is also a modern online version of Britannica which is [proprietary](proprietary.md) (and littered with ads) but has pretty good articles even on modern topics (of course facts you find there are in the public domain). Practically for any specialized topic it is nowadays possible to find its own wiki on the Internet.
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Important thing to realize is that, like most mainstream projects do, Wikipedia is not merely an [encyclopedia](encyclopedia.md) -- no, it's also a self-proclaimed child protector, Internet state, a center for [fighting](fight_culture.md) for women rights, [language police](political_correctness.md), a community, an organization for empowering black disabled lesbians and delivering [justice](justice.md). Did you ever wish your encyclopedia was your own private cop that told you which books are approved and prevented you from reading the bad ones? That with a book in your pocket you'd be actually constantly carrying around a community of diverse black fat trans editors ready to rewrite your book according to latest trends? That it would protect you from bad opinions, snapped your fingers and yelled `<CHILD PROTECT>` whenever you looked at a child picture for too long? Like your toothbrush is actually a subscription software with internet browser and remote camera, Wikipedia is a living, breathing entity that will decide what's best for you, without you having to think. Books that just provide information are so 20th century bro.
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## Good And Bad Things About Wikipedia
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Let's note a few positive and negative points about Wikipedia, as of 2022. Some good things are:
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