Uzebox Goes Retail

By: Derek Yu

On: April 14th, 2009

The Uzebox, the open-source homebrew retro game console we covered last year, is now available for purchase as a fully-assembled unit for $95! You can also buy the $70 Fuzebox, an unassembled kit that comes with a printed circuit board. The above video shows off some of the games and demos that have been put together since the project was first announced. Thanks, Uze!

The Uzebox Project

By: Derek Yu

On: August 26th, 2008

You know, I’ve been waiting for something like this for a long while! The Uzebox is an open-source homebrew retro game console based on Atmel’s AVR 8-bit general purpose microcontroller. Its creator, “Uze,” has designed the system to be simple, but relatively powerful, so that hobbyists can easily put together their own system. Games can be programmed in C, using free software, and are compiled with the kernel and then flashed directly onto the main chip.

“AVR Megatris,” the Tetris DS clone Uze developed for the system, looks and sounds pretty good! The Uzebox supports 256 simultaneous colors onscreen, a 240×224 (40×28 tiles) screen resolution, a 4-channel sound engine, a MIDI In input port, and 2 NES joystick ports. It also has 4k of RAM and an overclocked speed of ~28.6 MHz.

The source and schematics are both available for download on the Uzebox website, under GPL. This would make a fun, and nerdy, weekend project. I’d love to see people develop games for this thing!

(Source: Brandon, via insert credit)