Emulators and Raspberry Pi can form a hot commodity whenever somebody’s feeling creative, and you can’t blame their makers for wanting to provide people with more ways to enjoy the classics. But some people have a more practical way of working past certain immersion-breaking features; such as designing the hardware around the emulator to turn it into a functioning replica of the real thing. That has been the case with ChaseLambeth, a Reddit user who thought it would be absolutely brilliant to put a Raspberry Pi Zero inside a plastic Game Boy Color toy from Burger King back in 2000.
The toy itself started out with a simple premise, allowing to get their hands on the product before they even knew they wanted it. Of course, it wasn’t an actual Game Boy Color; on the inside was a tilting ball maze. But the simple game lowered both the cost and digital threshold normally needed to enjoy a Game Boy. It’s just too bad kids were left with an empty shell of a great handheld console. So it’s a good thing it got caught up by internet users.
Because despite working on the little project for months, ChaseLambeth ended up with a volume issue — there wasn’t enough space to fit the parts inside of the toy. But as luck would have it, they say they stumbled across an Instagram user who’d had the same idea and had a working copy ready for order. ChaseLambeth calls it the Game Boy Color Nano. The components were the same, and the RetroPie emulator OS for Raspberry Pi was installed to emulate the Game Boy Color. The OS supports even more emulators in theory, but considering the specific layout and number of buttons, it may not control very well when dealing with other emulators. It cost $250 but being worth it and all, it somehow found its way to their doorstep.
Here’s something to throw you back to the early 2000s, when Microsoft Millennium Edition and other fantastic products swamped the market.
