Arduboy

Overview

The Arduboy is a credit-card sized open-hardware handheld launched in 2015 by Kevin Bates. It runs tiny homebrew games on Arduino-compatible hardware and has an active community of indie developers.

REG-Linux handles Arduboy titles via the arduboy system group so compatible themes can pick the matching artwork set.

Technical specifications

• Manufacturer: Kevin Bates
• Release year: 2015
• Hardware type: portable
• CPU: Arduino-compatible microcontroller (ATmega32u4)
• Display: Monochrome OLED

Supported ROM extensions

hex, zip, 7z

Quick reference

• Emulator/frontend: RetroArch
• Core: libretro: arduous
• ROM folder: /userdata/roms/arduboy
• System group: arduboy

BIOS

No BIOS or firmware files are required for Arduboy emulation.

ROMs

Place Arduboy games—usually .hex files but archives (.zip, .7z) are permitted—in /userdata/roms/arduboy. RetroArch will extract the .hex image from archives when launching a core.

Emulators

RetroArch

RetroArch loads Arduboy software through the libretro: arduous core. For general UI tips, shaders, overlays, hotkeys and netplay options, refer to the RetroArch page.

libretro: arduous

arduous is the libretro core dedicated to Arduboy content. REG-Linux currently exposes the default configuration, which works for most titles.

Controls

Here’s the default Arduboy layout mapped onto a REG-Linux Retropad:

To change mappings, use RetroArch’s input settings or REG-Linux’s controller configuration menus.

Troubleshooting

• Verify your ROMs live in /userdata/roms/arduboy and use .hex, .zip or .7z extensions.
• If games do not appear, refresh the game list so REG-Linux rescans the folder.