One giant leap: Data Frog SF2000 set to greatly expand its system compatibility in the near future

Good news for fans of the SF2000, the el cheapo handheld game device sold by AliExpress and other Chinese retail sites. YouTube user S1eepy reports that hobbyist programmer Adcockm has brought over twenty new emulators to the system. What this means is that in the near future, you could be playing the software libraries of over a dozen retro game consoles on your Data Frog, along with the handful it currently supports.

The newly supported consoles include the Atari Lynx, the Neo Geo Pocket and its Color upgrade, Ataris 2600 and 5200, the ColecoVision, NEC's TurboGrafx-16, and for British gamers who can remember that far back, the ZX Spectrum computer. Consoles you probably shouldn't expect on the Data Frog include the Commodore line of computers and of course, more demanding machines like the Playstation and Saturn which no rational person should expect to work on a twenty dollar handheld.

There's currently no ETA for the release of Adcockm's custom firmware, but believe me when I say I'll be eagerly waiting for news about its continued development.

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ArugulaZ, 7 months ago

Okay, so Adcockm released an early alpha version of his custom firmware, and it seems to be shaping up pretty well. Games for the Atari 2600, ColecoVision, and various early Sega consoles run without issue. Atari Lynx is surprisingly excellent, at least as good as the real machine and certainly easier to see. The custom firmware also makes the Data Frog a fine substitute TurboExpress, capable of playing the lion's share of its games on a superior screen. Performance in Neo-Geo Pocket Color games is likewise pretty solid... Crush Roller (aka Make Trax) usually gives emulators fits, but whatever they're using here runs the game without any trouble. (Don't play Sonic Pocket Adventure. It works, but the "Sayyy-gaaah!" voice sample that plays at boot sounds like it came out of the bowels of Satan.)

On the down side, Atari 5200 is a problem- I ran up against multiple exception errors while running games- and some of the systems on offer run worse than the Data Frog's default emulators. Don't go in expecting a miracle cure for Super NES or Game Boy Advance games, because brother, you ain't getting it.

Also, you can't use Tadpole or other programs to change the Data Frog's boot logo while the custom firmware is running, evidently because the address for it has changed, and attempting to make that change would likely corrupt the file. Still, this is a promising step in the right direction. Why the original development team didn't include a Turbografx-16 emulator in the first place is a mystery... the system's hardware is well documented and not all that demanding. Better late than never, I suppose!

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