Sharing here because this is an idea I've floated in my head for some time now and might be fun for some folks to tackle, my spacey brain tends to not allow me to execute on these ideas that much.

Obviously you could make a video game console out of a Raspberry Pi using an emulator OS and a controller but this gives you everything in the Pi itself which is convenient, but misses some of the fun vibes of having a console by not featuring actual collectible media and box art, etc. So the idea I was toying with was to take individual SD cards and make them single purpose: boot into a very minimal OS with Xorg and Matchbox Window Manager, have it run a single emulator and have that emulator run a single game. This way there is a "one game to one card" ratio. It's now a plug and play game cartridge!

So you could then set up an enclosure, wire an SD card port connecting to both the real port and the case. Do something similar with a controller port so you can just use what you like, i.e. SNES or Playstation or something. 5v power jack connecting to the Pi as well and a power button.

Could even go the extra mile and incorporate some cool designs for the Pi case, and make box art for your games. If it's a full sized SD card with an indent you could make a box art label for the "cartridge", and there's likely cases for SD cards similar in style to a DVD case. Develop and print your box art, maybe even make a manual, and you have a nice collectible "complete-in-box" little game for your little console.

Is this wholly unnecessary? Absolutely, but it seems like a fun project.

Only kink I haven't worked out is saving. Would be cool if you didn't need to shut down the Pi to save it appropriately - load the SD card to memory instead and only use the game in memory, shut down whenever and you're fine. But then the game still has to save somewhere. Hm.

Maybe I should just build an Uzebox...

#VideoGames #RaspberryPi #DIY