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NES Classic is back – but still hard to get – so we're doing our DIY guide again.
In November 2016, Nintendo surprised everyone by returning to its roots and launching the NES Classic. The delicious emulator / nostalgia-fest has generated unexpected demand, including near-instantaneous supply problems and 200% mark-ups on secondary markets. So, in December 2016, we decided to build our own version instead.
Last April, Nintendo strangely halted sales of the retro console that was selling well, prompting us to re-surface this guide. And with the news that Nintendo has relaunched the console this week – but again the offer is a first hurdle for interested players – we are republishing this piece to help those of you who have already created their own more flexible alternative. The hardware recommendations have been updated and slightly modified to reflect current availability and pricing for June 2018.
In November 2016, Nintendo surprised everyone by returning to its roots and launching the NES Classic. The delicious emulator / nostalgia-fest has generated unexpected demand, including near-instantaneous supply problems and 200% mark-ups on secondary markets. So, in December 2016, we decided to build our own version instead.
Last April, Nintendo strangely interrupted sales of the retro console that was selling well, prompting us to redo this guide. And with the news that Nintendo has relaunched the console this week – but again the offer is a first hurdle for interested players – we are republishing this piece to help those of you who have already created their own more flexible alternative. The material recommendations have been updated and slightly modified to reflect current availability and pricing for June 2018.
Against my best judgment, I've tried a few times to hang one of these adorable small classic editions of NES at $ 60. put some of his limited stock online and crashed on his own site, and once when Walmart was shipping small quantities every few days a few weeks ago. In both cases, I failed.
But the itch of nostalgia can not always be scratched by logical thoughts like "Do you really need to pay money for Super Mario Bros." 3 ", and" Castlevania II: Simon's Quest is probably the weakest of the three NES games Castlevania . " Since it is not entirely clear if these mini NES mini will be available, I decided to intone this little wad of cash and the desire to play nostalgia in a DIY project .
It turns out that the NES Classic Edition is just a small Linux-powered card in a nice box, and it's entirely possible to build your own little Linux computer in a nice box without spending more than $ 60. And by using the Raspberry Pi and free software available, you can build something that can do more than play the same 30 NES games over and over again.
Note: Ars Technica Can Get Compensation Set Goals
Set Goals
I find it useful to pursue a new DIY project starting with a list of needs and desires to go from there. help people who are not technically inclined (and actively opposed to technology) to make purchasing decisions. With my homebrew NES Classic, I wanted:
With all that in mind, these are the components on which I settled (price and components updated on 30/06/2018):
Raspberry Pi 3 Model B + 2.5A
Buffalo Classic USB GamePad for PC
With the 32GB microSD card, Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, and a controller, this nomenclature comes to about $ 76 which is more expensive than a single NES Classic but still reasonable enough for what you get. Many of these components are also quite common so that you can save money by simply using things that you already have hanging out (and for our purposes, I already assume you do not need to worry about it). a HDMI cable because it's 2018 and we're all ugly with HDMI cables, here's a 3-foot for $ 6 and a 6-foot for $ 7 if you need it.)
Construction [19659011] Putting our little box together is ridiculously easy, and you should not have a problem with it even if you have never opened a PC tower in your life. The official Pi case is divided into five separate parts, all held together with retaining tabs that squeeze with firm pressure: the base, the top, the lid and the two sides / tarpaulins.
Completely disassemble the holster by pulling on the sides, then pressing the arrow tabs so you can pull the top. Then take the Pi out of its box and slide it into the base, making sure that the microSD slot aligns with its cutout on the front of the case. Do not force the card into the case-if you are having trouble, place the SD slot side of the case into the case at a 45-degree angle, and then lower the rear end of the Pi into the case. The small plastic tabs should come out of the two panel mounting holes if you have done it correctly. Then, close the top and sides of the holster, and you're done! If you have purchased heatsinks, you can stick them on the chips at the top of the board at any point in this process, including after the Pi is already in the case.
This is the easiest part. The software is more complicated, but not insurmountable.
Software Configuration
For the following parts of the process, you will need:
Making retro game consoles is a fairly common use case for the Pi. Are some system choices d & rsquo; # 39; different holding there. Most of them involve running libretro and its emulators on the Raspbian operating system, and the most important ones also include the EmulationStation frontend.
The best support, the most active of these options is RetroPie, which mixes all these ingredients in a relatively easy-to-use, visually appealing and customizable package. It also includes a large number of emulators for consoles and different personal computers, but as I mentioned, nothing newer than the original PlayStation will work well on the Pi 3 hardware (the new systems are confined to the x86 version of RetroPie, which looks and works in much the same way but is based on Ubuntu and can run on more powerful and expensive hardware.)
The first thing to do is to drop a RetroPie boot image on your SD card. Because RetroPie is based on Linux and uses the ext4 file system, Windows and Mac computers can not interact natively with the card after you reformat it. The RetroPie download page is here. The image creation tool recommended by RetroPie developers varies depending on your operating system: Win32DiskImager for Windows, Apple Pi Baker for macOS and Unetbootin for Linux, but the basic process is the same. Unzip the downloaded .gz file from the RetroPie website, open the tool and select the .img file you just unzipped. Point the tool on your SD card-if the tool does not see it, you may need to format it as a FAT32 drive first and let it do it.
Once the disc image has been copied to the SD card, take it out and place it in the Pi, then plug the Pi into the display with an HDMI cable, plug in a controller or a keyboard, and then plug in the power. The system should start and pass through some configurations for the first time (if the red light on the Pi turns on but nothing else happens, the card might not be formatted properly, and you should try again)
OK, after a few minutes you will see an EmulationStation prompt asking you to log in and set up a joystick. Press any button on your controller, and you will automatically be prompted to map all the controller buttons. If you use the Buffalo gamepad that I bought, it will ask you to map some buttons that the gamepad does not have; just press any other button on the controller to ignore them, then press any button again to access the main EmulationStation interface
All you will see by default is an entry for RetroPie that gives you access to settings – it's quite normal, and you will see entries for other systems appear when you transfer ROMs to the Pi. You can navigate through several of these setup menus using a joystick, but by heading you to one of RetroPie's settings, you end up in the frontend of EmulationStation in a menu tunnel plus DOS. If you need to enter text or even press the Esc key to exit one of these menus, you will need to first plug in a USB keyboard.
Here is a short list of things to do before diving into the fun part. From now on, I guess you have a keyboard and a joystick to use.
At this point you have a basic configuration of RetroPie running, you have connected your box to your network and you know its IP address, and you have updated EmulationStation, its emulators and the Raspbian operating system underlying the latest versions. It is now time to load games.
Viewing the image listed by Andrew Cunningham
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