What are we looking at?
This is the PiBoy DMG “Experimental Pi”
This is not a review unit – it was a gift (much appreciated!)
It’s a “case” for a Raspberry Pi! It has internals to handle Pi 3b, Pi 4b or Pi Zero.
The “case” includes a PCB and a 640x480 LCD. The LCD doesn’t use one of the
normal display outputs, so it can be a bit weird, but the display is supported in
the Pi community. More about that is available on the ExperimentalPi site.
The PCB is really awesome. It includes:
* Soft shutdown circuit (clean shutdown of the pi!)
* LiPo battery interface & charging Circuit
* LCD Brightness Control
* Analog Audio, Mic Jack and Volume Control
* SDCard Extension Ribbon (makes SD accessible w/o disassembly)
The RPI (4b, in my case) ports are still accessible on the top of the device.
On the bottom of the device is USB micro b power/usb input, headphones and volume control.
Can it run Doom?
It’s just a RaspberryPi! So yes, along with a lot of other things.
Obviously, Retro gaming is cool. And there are infinity many facilities, for now, to play your old retro games on this type of setup. One stop for all your old games. That’s fun, but I’ve got more in mind.
Steam Link!? But Steam link is really cool too!
RaspberryPi, Remember.
Out of the box, it was tricky to get both mouse control (paried bluetooth trackball) and “controller” support working simultaneously. There are work-arounds for how you launch games via steam to keep keyboard input enabled. I
was a bit disappointed this didn’t work out of the box on “Firmware 1.03” from the ExperimentalPi folks, but not too much of a pain to get it working.
Otherwise SteamLink works perfectly from initial setup. Pair your PiBoy with Steam on your desktop computer, then you get BigPicture and that’s prettymuch it.
Build Quality
The build quality is surprisingly good in the plastic case, the lcd and how all the parts fit. Check out the video for more detail. The fan is easily the worst part about the system. It is not great. I might replace it with a big heatsink that sticks through the label cutout on the back 1-2mm. Speaker quality is decent; amplifier quality is better than expected.
#Cyberpunk 2077 !?!?!
This seems like a pretty Cyberpunk way to enjoy '77 
Other off-label uses?
The sky is the limit. There are so many “Raspberry Pi” projects out there. In this case I was messing around with using this as a wirleless network vulnerability scanner. Should make for some lively conversation starters next time it’s on the job! haha.
This is Greenbone Network Vulnerability Tool, well, just the web front-end for it. I need to figure out a cleaner way to get at that on the Pi.
With the “normal” HDMI out, this can also be used as a full-fat portable computer.
Full Video Soon!!
