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History of video games/Platforms/TinyDuino

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History

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Background

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Akron, Ohio - The provenance of the Tiny Arcade and the Tiny Pocket.
Early Tinyduino boards.

TinyCircuits was founded in 2011 as AkroSense,[1] and began attracting media attention under the TinyCircuits name by 2012 with the development of the TinyDuino platform.[2] By 2013 the company had shifted from handmade production to mass production in the fifth floor of a former B.F.Goodrich factory in Akron, Ohio.[3] By 2014 the TinyDuino was being integrated in gaming applications by third parties.[4] This was the origin of the company and the platform which would form the basis for TinyDuino Arcade and TinyDuino Pocket game consoles.

The Goodreach building in Akron, Ohio.

Development

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A similar concept to the Tiny Pocket was seen in the TinyScreen Video Game Kit promoted during a 2014 Kickstarter.[5]

Following a well received prototype demo at the bay area Maker Faire in May 2015 the Tiny Arcade kickstarter launched in November 2015.[6]

Launch

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The Tiny Arcade saw a full retail release in August 2018.[6]

The TinyPocket was later suplemented with the Thumby.

Technology

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Compute

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The Tiny Arcade is powered by a 32-bit SAMD21 ARM processor clocked at 48 megahertz.[7][8][9]

The SAMD21 processor includes 32 kilobytes of SRAM and 256 kilobytes of storage.[9]

Hardware

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The Tiny Arcade uses an 0.96" OLED screen with a resolution of 96 by 64 pixels and 16 bit color depth.[7][9]

A rechargeable lithium battery powers the Tiny Arcade.[7]

All Tiny Circuits products and made in Akron, Ohio, with the company based out of a former rubber factory.[6]

Games

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Games for the TinyArcade are typically open source and free.[7] A number of TinyArcade games can be seen on the official GitHub repository for the system.[10]

The developer Neo Retro made a number of indie games for the platform.[11]

Many early games for the system incorporated the word tiny in their titles, becoming a sort of unofficial naming theme, despite coming from different developers.

2016

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  • Tiny Run - Platformer[12]
  • Tiny Shooter - 2D horizontal space shooter[13]
  • Tiny Invaders - Fixed axis shooter similar to Space Invaders.[14]
  • Tinytris - Falling block puzzle game.[15]
  • Tiny Asteroids - Arcade shooter similar to the classic game Asteroids.[16]
  • Flappy Birdz - Clone of the mobile phone arcade style game Flappy Bird.[17]

2019

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  • Rayne the Rogue Part 2 - Arcade maze game[11][18]

2020

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Other TinyDuino Based Handhelds

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A DIY TinyDuino based game console in 2015. This is different from the official TinyPocket. For more information on this specific handheld, read the guide on Spanish Wikiversity.

External Resources

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References

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  1. ↑ "About Us" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/pages/about-us. 
  2. ↑ "Change of Pace: TinyDuino Microcontroller Is Smaller Than a Quarter" (in en-us). Wired. https://www.wired.com/2012/09/tinyduino/. 
  3. ↑ "WKSU News: Exploradio: TinyCircuits and small-scale manufacturing". WKSU. https://archive.wksu.org/news/feature/exploradio/37690. 
  4. ↑ "Immersion: Video Game Biofeedback". Hackaday. 31 January 2014. https://hackaday.com/2014/01/31/immersion-video-game-biofeedback/. 
  5. ↑ Hurley, Leon. "Tiny Handheld Console Actually Plays Games" (in en-us). Kotaku. https://kotaku.com/tiny-handheld-console-actually-plays-games-1642834594. 
  6. ↑ a b c "About Us". TinyCircuits. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  7. ↑ a b c d "Tiny Arcade DIY Kit". TinyCircuits. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  8. ↑ "TinyCircuits/TinyCircuits-Pocket-Arcade-ASM2026" (PDF). GitHub. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  9. ↑ a b c "Getting Started - TinyCircuits". learn.tinycircuits.com. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  10. ↑ "TinyCircuits/TinyCircuits-Tiny-Arcade-Games". GitHub. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  11. ↑ a b "Customer Feature- Neo Retro Games" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/news/customer-feature-neo-retro-games. 
  12. ↑ "Tiny Run" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/games/178277575-tiny-run. 
  13. ↑ "Tiny Shooter" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/games/153847815-tiny-shooter. 
  14. ↑ "Tiny Invaders" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/games/169455239-tiny-invaders. 
  15. ↑ "Tinytris" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/games/171185479-tinytris. 
  16. ↑ "Tiny Asteroids" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/games/171197511-tiny-asteroids. 
  17. ↑ "Flappy Birdz" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/games/178269895-flappy-birdz. 
  18. ↑ "Rayne the Rogue Part 2" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/games/rayne-the-rogue-part-2. 
  19. ↑ "MAYKer Madness Winners!" (in en). TinyCircuits. https://tinycircuits.com/blogs/news/mayker-madness-winners. 
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