Old Burger King Toy Becomes Game Boy Color Nano

Whenever someone at Emulators and Raspberry Pi is feeling creative, a new hot commodity is produced, and with their latest product, you can’t blame them for making sure people still enjoy the classics.

When McDonald’s launched its Happy Meal boxes that could easily be turned into Google Cardboard compatible VR headsets, people thought they were quite innovative. However, rival Burger King could be ahead of the competition when it comes to mixing tech with food.

It was the year 2000 when the fast food chain had started to give away gaming handhelds that looked like smaller versions of the Nintendo GameBoy Color. Evidently, it couldn’t hold a light to the original Nintendo device, but it was capable of playing analog games inside.

But with today’s technological advancements, it was really only a matter of time before a toy got an accurate GameBoy makeover. Such was the case of ChaseLambeth, a Reddit user who thought of the brilliant idea of placing a Raspberry Pi Zero inside a plastic Game Boy Color toy.

The toy is, of course, not an actual Game Boy Color, because a tilting ball maze had been built on the inside. However, the simple concept lowered the cost normally needed to enjoy a Game Boy.

But there was a problem: Despite working on his little project for months, ChaseLambeth couldn’t figure out the volume issue. Basically, the many parts wouldn’t fit inside the toy.

He thought of giving up until he stumbled across an Instagram user who’d had the same idea, only he had succeeded. His copy of the game – which ChaseLambeth calls the Game Boy Color Nano – was ready for order.

The other designer had installed the same components, and the RetroPie emulator OS for Raspberry Pi was used to emulate the Game Boy Color.

In theory, the OS is capable of supporting even more emulators, but considering the number of buttons and the specific layout, the result might not be the same when other emulators are used.

The Nano costs $250 but it might be worth it; at that price, you get a toy mod that wired the buttons to actually control the RPi Zero, featuring a 2-inch LCD display for graphics, in addition to speakers. The result is nothing short of a masterpiece.
Image Source: YouTube

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Karen Jackson

Karen Jackson has always been passionate about technology. All the way through high-school she immersed herself in computers and web-design. Her ambitious nature helped her become a pro in Adobe Photoshop only by watching online videos and working with the program herself. This is also the program that she mostly uses in the creation of websites at her work-place. Technological innovation and gadgets that push the boundaries of what we are comfortable with have always fascinated her, so expect to see some weird gadget reviews coming from her.