The Box of Nostalgia (Semi Portable Retro Gaming Console)

As of a year ago we all remember nearly the entire world go down into lock down, I am pretty sure that this was a very boring time for everyone. Although there were many things that were restricted to everyone, some people were still able to keep themselves entertained. As for me this was a project that got sparked during the lock down, I got interested into building my own retro gaming machine. This is not the final version, I plan on adding some things to this project, I will try to keep updating to this project until it is complete.

• Raspberry Pi 3 B+
• 1 Game Controller
• 3.5 in Raspberry Pi TFT screen or 3.5 in HDMI display
• 1 USB drive.
• 1 Suitcase.
• Arcade Controller Set (Buttons, Joystick, and Controller circuit.)
• Small HDMI TV and Cable

So as the suggests in this step, you are going to need to set up your Raspberry Pi. So the first thing you need to do is get the Raspberry Pi Imager to upload the RetroPie operating system. Now that you have installed it you want to open it go to Choose OS, Emulation and Gaming, then choose RetroPie, and in there choose whichever Pi you have (In my case the 3B+). Next choose Storage, and choose the SD card for your Pi, then lastly you click on Write.

Now all you have to do is take out your SD card (once it is done writing of course) insert it into your machine, and plug it into the HDMI TV. Plug in your game controller to the console, and just program your controller. If you need help, there are some other people on this website who show how to set it up. If you need some help here is some info on how to setup RetroPie here are a few Instructables and info on RetroPie.

• https://www.instructables.com/The-ULTIMATE-RetroPie-41-Raspberry-Pi-Setup-Tutori/
• https://retropie.org.uk/
• https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Transferring-Roms/
• https://retropie.org.uk/docs/

Now that you have your gaming machine setup, it is now time to use the small display. When I did this project, I ended up buying the wrong display, but I made it work either way. Here is the website for where I got my code to run my mini screen.

https://github.com/juj/fbcp-ili9341

To do this you need to install PUTTY (Make sure you get the one for the right operating system).

First connect your raspberry pi to your TV, then connect to your WIFI through the WIFI settings (you will need a key board) in the RETROPIE menu. If you want the easy way then just connect your pi to the ethernet.

Once you have completed that, now go to the Raspberry Configuration, or raspi-config, go to interface, and enable SSH.

Now lastly got to IP Address and use the given address in PUTTY.

Lastly plugin this code into the terminal

sudo apt-get install cmake

cd ~

git clone https://github.com/juj/fbcp-ili9341.git

cd fbcp-ili9341

mkdir build

cd build

cmake -DSPI_BUS_CLOCK_DIVISOR=20 -DWAVESHARE35B_ILI9486=ON ..

make -j

sudo ./fbcp-ili9341

... Then hit enter, close putty and reopen it and restart the connection, then enter this code,

sudo nano /etc/rc.local

... When you press enter you should see a lot of things that look like code, go to the bottom, in between fi and exit, and enter these final lines.

sudo /home/pi/fbcp-ili9341/build/fbcp-ili9341 &

...Type Ctrl+x, then press Y and type in

sudo reboot

... hit enter and you are done.

Now that you have the machine setup you should be able to emulate old consoles from the Arcade to the PlayStation Portable and more.

Plug in your raspberry pi to your display. and use