We are in full swing of portable consoles where after SONY’s fiasco with PSP and PSP Vita Nintendo arrived to change the rules of the game and now we are immersed in a new race where Steam Deck seems to have everything to win. But among so much performance and performance there is always room for something more modest and equally surprising, for example, a tiny portable console with ridiculous specifications compared to those named and which, on the other hand, is a milestone in itself. We present to PINKY.
Fair claims, maximum enthusiasm and many hours of work. Thus, what is possibly the smallest portable console in the world to date has been revealed. If a few years ago the joke was can your PC run Crysis? Now the joke is taken to a new level where it changes the game: can your mini console run DOOM? This wonder can.
This is PINKY, the mini console that you can make at home
With a tiny size where our fingers will hardly enter for its buttons, this small portable console is raising great expectations on the Internet thanks to the platform Adafruit QT Pya small embedded board for open development with ESP32 Peak v3 02 which is a small wonder in itself that integrates a dual core ARM Cortex processor with 240MHz and integrate 2 MB of PSRAM and 8 MB of Flash memory as storage.
As if this were not enough in the size of a coin, a PCB has been welded to this plate that will integrate the screen and the buttons to give life to this extremely small console, and that manages to implement nothing less than a screen of 1.3 inch TFT IPS with a resolution of 240 x 240 pixels.
Finally, we will have 10 buttons available of control (GPIO AW9523), a port Micro SD and all in the size of just a credit card.
An open project in every way
To make DOOM run on said console, the software responsible for bringing the console to life had to be modified. Using a Retro-Go emulation project the development team was able to upload as shareware DOOM 1 WAD and even send the audio via Bluetooth to headphones, where we can thus enjoy the music and effects that we have heard so many times from the hand of Bobby Prince back in 1993.
The project has reached such a caliber that the team has contacted John Carmack and John Romero to make it known and exchange opinions, where, as they comment, the possibilities are incredible, since not only can DOOM run at 100% of its potential, but can emulate games of Nintendo, Sega Master System, Game Boy, Game Boy Color and apparently any existing retro console that has been released, such as the Atari 2600.
A true wonder that, if carried out successfully and with adequate financing, could be an alternative as a mini console that would open another new front and with it options in the field of portable consoles, but in the opposite direction to performance and top-level games.
