3 ms·
Nothing is said about the hardware (which will be posted Sept 12), but I wonder what processor they're using. There have been a lot of advances in lower power p
by KMnO4 6y ago
Nothing is said about the hardware (which will be posted Sept 12), but I wonder what processor they're using. There have been a lot of advances in lower power processors over these last years.
I was once at a conference where Atmel was demoing their SAM L21 board by transmitting FM radio to a nearby radio receiver using the heat generated by your hand.
I went home and purchased a board and found it amazing. 48 MHz ARM Cortex-M0+ that consumed < 35µA/MHz [0]. You could run an IOT device for years on a coin cell!
Recently someone on HN mentioned the Ambiq Apollo3, which is even more incredible with up to 96MHz and less than 6 (yes, SIX) µA/MHz. [1]. Absolutely mind blowing.
That said, the biggest reason why I think new processors aren't used often is their support/documentation. AVR processors are pretty bad in a lot of ways (cost, performance, power consumption, etc) but you'll be hard pressed to find a problem which hasn't already been solved by the millions of Arduino users. Good luck troubleshooting your obscure interrupt issues with that one Microchip processor that only 10 people use.
[0]: https://www.microchip.com/design-centers/32-bit/sam-32-bit-mcus/sam-l-mcus https://www.microchip.com/design-centers/32-bit/sam-32-bit-m...
[1]: https://www.fujitsu.com/uk/about/resources/news/press-releases/2018/apollo3-blue-wireless-ulp-mcu.html https://www.fujitsu.com/uk/about/resources/news/press-releas...
- danbolt 6y agoI was wondering the same, especially since the Game Boy's Z80-esque processor was designed for minimal power consumption even at the time of the handheld's launch. I think it's outside the intent of the prototype, but I do wonder if avoiding an emulator would give more power savings.
- Andrex 6y agoThere's probably heaps of patents involved, including those from partners (mostly Sharp?), but my dream is that one day Nintendo fully opens the Game Boy for use as an educational platform similar to Raspberry Pi. Imagine widespread tinkering in robotics classes. There's probably less than a 1% chance of it ever happening, but man, I wish someone would at least float the idea to the NCL higher-ups in an interview or something.
- danbolt 6y agoI think it'd be a nice platform to teach assembly to university students as well, given the hardware is so ubiquitous, straightforward, and fun.