I created an SDK for the Anbernic RG DS Plus

Computing hardware has come a long way.  With the rise of ARM-based SoC chips like Rockchip, you can now purchase a fully functional computer with a screen, a battery, basic gaming controls (dpad, A/B/X/Y, shoulder+trigger) for under $100.

It's even more incredible that all of these run Linux out of the box.  In 2026, Linux support for devices has changed completely.  Decades ago, you'd have to jailbreak a device, put effort into understanding the system, download some proprietary compiler toolchain, reverse-engineer an sdk, and then painfully write programs by hand. Nowadays, these systems run Linux natively.  The system image can be mounted on a Linux desktop, and you can modify files directly on the system image. You have root on the machine, you can do whatever is interesting to you. Since it runs linux, standard libraries will work on it, you can cross-compile tools and utilities, and the usual knowledge of programming from Linux carries over.

 These are originally meant to run retro games, and they work great for that purpose. When you look under the hood, you realize these are amazingly versatile devices.

One of the popular devices this year is the Anbernic RG DS Plus, which is a dual-screen device, which looks similar to the Nintendo DS.  This is meant to run Nintendo DS games, but it also is a fully functioning Linux machine with two screens that you can use to program your own games or utilities.  The RG DS+ has network, and supports USB host mode.  It has two SD card slots for storage, and a good selection of buttons, a single analog stick, and a touchscreen.

I've created an SDK for the Anbernic RG DS Plus, which can be used to create custom utilities.  It is programmed in C, using libX11 for drawing windows.  The lower screen is a 10-input multi-touch display, and one of the examples shows how to read all the 10 pointer values.  The other included example shows how to read all the buttons.  The SDK drives both displays and is well documented so you (or your LLM buddy) can write programs targetting this device.  The repository also has code for two utilities that I created for this device, a pomodoro-style timer for tracking focus at work, and a metronome for tracking focus off work.  The SDK works on the native system image for the RG DS+. The device is too new for custom firmware to be available, but should be very easy to modify the SDK if Knulli, or Rocknix support this device, as the hardware behavior stays the same.