As most regular readers will probably know, I’ve got a thing for low powered devices. In my daily work life, I build clusters with them and write/run scientific computing and visualization software on them. At home though, I’ve got a thing for game consoles, emulation, and USB. I’ve especially got a thing for getting people playing games or running consoles on unusual systems that they would have never thought to use. I think the Zipit and IM-ME communities are fairly well aware of this already. What amazed me though, is how few people I found seriously discussing the idea of using a pogoplug device as a game or emulation console. Allow me to get the conversation started with a bang.
For those with web ADHD:
tl;dr – Using a Dockstar and a DisplayLink adapter in tandem for gaming works incredibly well not just as an emulation console, but as a general purpose desktop as well, watch the video below for a multitude of console and PC gaming goodness. I show it running
- Scummvm (Monkey Island 3)
- NES (Contra)
- Doxbox (Warcraft)
- Mednafen–
- Lynx (Lemmings)
- GBA (Aria of Sorrow)
- GBC (Lufia)
- GB (Links Awakening)
- TurboGrafx (Bonk 3)
- NeoGeo Pocket (Last Blade)
- Wonderswan (Guilty Gear Petite 2)
- stella 2600 (Adventure)
- VisualBoyAdvance (Mario World)
- SuperTux
- Abuse – Actually this was cut for time in the youtube clip but it plays perfectly.
- Wesnoth
- yabuase Sega Saturn (Sonic Extreme)
- Quake 3 (OpenArena)
Most with the exception of Saturn and OpenArena run at full playable speed with sound and full or near fullscreen graphics. I have no reason to believe SNES or even Mame and Playstation are out of the picture, with some cleverness. There is so much more below.
For everyone else, read on for photos, configuration files, tips, tricks, explanations, and a thorough walkthrough of the process.
