Researchers at Northwestern University and the Delft University of Technology in Holland are currently giving the classic 8-bit Nintendo Game Boy a makeover.
The researchers are powering the console with the energy of button pressing and a solar panel in the display screen itself.
Scientists preserved the old processor and said that the feeling of using this toy will be the same as the original.
The Game Boy classic 8-bit was released in 1989 and is powered by AA batteries. It eventually moved towards rechargeable batteries.
But researchers want to change that because batteries are costly to manufacture and are very hard to recycle.
They also took the fact that having laptops and powerful gaming computers are a good substitute, however, they cause people to have huge electricity bills.
This is why they came up with the “green Game Boy” idea.
They wanted to demonstrate the effectiveness of several kinds of battery-alternatives.
Josiah Hester, a researcher with the Northwestern University, co-led the research and said:
It’s the first battery-free interactive device that harvests energy from user actions. When you press a button, the device converts that energy into something that powers your gaming.
The green Game Boy is capable of playing games such as Tetris and Chess, but it still has a hard time playing games such as Super Mario Bros.
The researchers developed a new technique of storing the system state in a non-volatile memory, which minimizes overhead and allows quick restoration when power returns.
This is because the game only runs on electricity and the times you click the buttons.
In simpler words, there is no save button.
However, the console will return you to exactly where you were when the device lost its power.