I mentioned earlier that I have a plan to build a Raspberry Pi project, and I’m often haunting sites with articles like What I’ve Learned From Tinkering With the Raspberry Pi for Five Years. I like LifeHacker as a site generally, although I can’t follow it completely — it’s like drinking from a firehose if I subscribe to its RSS feed. Back in March (14th, to be exact i.e. Pi Day — get it? 3.14?), they published the above linked article, and I loved it.
Before hobbyists latched onto the Raspberry Pi, it was a computer for learning how to code targeted mainly at kids. Since then, the appeal has broadened, but it’s still impossible for a project to “just work” out of the box. You will have to tweak something, dig into the command line, or spend a few hours buried in an obscure internet forum to find solutions to problems that only you seem to be having. You will slam your head against the wall, yell a little, and throw your Raspberry Pi at least once for every project you attempt to make.
In just about every other hobby, that would be a buzzkill for me from the word go. I feel that way every time I have to assemble Ikea furniture or build a shelving unit in my garage. It’s not something I have a knack for (home repair), but as a project for a hobby that lets me build my only little computer? I’m willing to give it a go.
I suspect I saved the article mostly because it talks about his experience building a retro game console, which is part of my desire. But it’s a good metaphor for why I want to do a project at all — troubleshooting, a little bit of gaming, and maybe some Linux. Following the path of those who have gone before.
I see lots of posts around the ‘net about the power of the Raspberry Pi. People who have turned it into a TV turner, remote control for a 100 different things, powered robots, tons of things out there. If you don’t know what a Raspberry Pi is, it’s basically a little tiny computer. It has the power of a high-end IBM AT, maybe a little further than that, but you can add just about anything to it. And it’s tiny, runs on batteries, so it’s the perfect toy for someone who wants to design a DIY device at home. Robotics and/or hardware courses in tech colleges often use them for early coursework by students to go crazy on their own inventions.
One thing that pops up frequently is someone who has used it to run an emulator program for old game console games — Nintendo, in particular, is the popular one with games from the original NES, Nintendo Cube, N64, and the whole series of Game Boy versions. The emulator software basically runs what used to be loaded on hardware in the console systems, and thus you can “load” game modules (called ROMs) into the emulator and it’s as if you popped the hardware cartridge into the original console. A software emulator of the console + the software of the game cartridge = brand new form of retro-style gaming.
Emulators have been around for years, and over time they started to “merge” into some key versions. Some died out just with the original designer losing interest, other times it’s because someone came along with a better version. However, one of the big developments in retro gaming was the ability to create a “governance” emulator that loads sub-emulators — which meant you could have ONE software program (like Emulation Station, shown in the video, or RetroArch, another popular one) and once you load it, you can add a bunch of sub-emulators for all the different systems. It’s still a bit tech heavy, i.e. the novice user might have a challenge, but there are walk-through videos and tip guides to tell you how to configure it all. Most people run the emulators on PC desktops, but there are versions that run on other gaming systems, some that run on Raspberry Pi, Android, iOS; you name it, there’s an emulator version.
This guy? He put it all together into a retro-style Game Boy, upgrading and tweaking as he went:
Raspberry Pi;
Original Game Boy box;
3.5″ composite display;
Added two extra NES buttons (for X&Y functions — later games needed more buttons to differentiate commands);
Original headphone jack which still disables external speaker when plugged in;
USB port for keyboad, mouse, whatever, because why not, really?;
Micro-USB for charging;
Mini-HDMI to go out to the TV;
Added two small buttons on the back to handle Left-Right sub-toggles (again for the later games);
Kept battery compartment;
2000 mAH lithium polymer battery;
USB hub inside had two ports, and he was only using one, so he added Bluetooth; and,
Screen buttons for contrast.
Now that’s pretty impressive, all on its own, and then he went to the genius level. He took an old Nintendo Game Boy cartridge that used to slide into the back for the games, broke it apart, adapted and modified it, and now it works with an SD to MicroSD card adapter! Which of course meant he had to then modify the cartridge reader in the Game Boy itself to read the SD card too.
Now he has a cartridge that goes in the Game Boy with the ability to load anything he wants off an micro SD card. In this case, Retro Pi, Emulation Station, and a bunch of emulators under the Emulation Station system. Voila, instant portable gaming system loaded with hundreds of retro games across multiple platforms.
If it wasn’t for the fact that ROMs exist in a semi-grey zone for legality, this guy could be rocking Kickstarter. He’s freakin’ brilliant. Lots of people are doing pieces of this, but he pulled it all together and rocked the house with awesome quality and design.
