Tutorial Time

For awhile I have been trying to make a GAMEBOY and Raspberry Pi Mod.

My last post showing some real progress and installation of the software.

Today I will write a better guide for myself and others so they can learn from my mistakes.
If you follow this guide for setting up your SD cart this progress will take about 1,5 h to complete.
(guide is below show and tell )

Warning: I still have to remove a error that i getting but i din’t find a solution for this atm:
”At random times i get: alsa lib pcm.c 7843: (snd_pcm_recover) underrun occurred” 
not when playing a game only if i am in the front end and during boot….

Lets start with show and tell:

Hardware used:
Gameboy case, wires, tact switches, empty PCB, power bar, cheap speakers and a Dremel

And of course a
Raspberry 1b:

And a Adafruit 2-8 pitft capacitive touch:

Below are some pictures of my GAMEBOY Pi that is mostly finished.
Things todo build in the speaker and power bar remove some plastic form d-pad because its fits to well…
But thinking of making a custom cartridge to slide in to the slot of the Gameboy.

This cartridge will have a SD cart and the power-bar build in
so i can power the Gameboy just by sticking the cartridge in it …
did a test using a cheap power bar it will give me over a hour gameplay.
(then my raspberry started acting strange so could be longer….)

Pictures:
How it looks now:

 

Build in Wifi and dongle for keyboard for now, in the future I gone extend one port to the side.
Ethernet is still available but don’t use a High-end cables, my own made utp cable works perfect

The mod of the case….

conversion:

The Layout

 Fitting the Layout

Showing the guts of the gameboy and fitting in the new tft touchscreen screen

Bezel of Gameboy on top of screen (will lose touchscreen function so will be a sticker)

Overview of the parts

Always check if it fits work in small parts one thing at the time.

Problem Video out and speaker jack are on the wrong side. Need to de-solder them.

PiTFT pcb is to big for the Gameboy case need to chip it down.
Removed the hole left side (seen from picture above) until the FFC connector.
Lost the tact solder position but then again i would use them anyway.

First idea for custom joystick control but scraped this in the end.
(Do little things at the time don’t do everything at once grrr……. )

 The Screen fits the case

At first i wanted to solder all 26 pins to the pcb’s but then i ordered a FFC extender
This saved my so much time and cost 6 Euro 😛

 These pictures showing the concept of the build.

I started this project awhile back so if you want to do this. Do little things, one thing at the time.
Don’t start doing lots of things at once because in the end you will need to change or rework it again…
(Tip from Ben Heck and now from me 😀 )

The Arivale of the FFC extender and extra Cable

After i got the ffc-cable to extend my PiTFT 2.8 inch from ada fruit.

Here are some progress pictures:

 

 You need controls.

I have rebuild the pcb for the controls because this way its much stronger then before. And the board looks more like the original Gameboy PCB haha.

RetroPi and PiTFT and DIY Joystick test!

Testing the tact switches…

RetroPi and PiTFT and DIY Joystick test 2!

More testing of the tact switches… 😀 Mario is fun hahaha.

For those how notice i have some strange glitching in my screen in the video’s above.
This is because at that time my raspberry pi setup was not perfect. Not that its now LOL.
But the screen glitching is gone…

GAMEBOY PI Semi complete Test!

This is my last video i made for now showing it closed (taped down) and using the original GAMEBOY buttons on my custom pcb using those 8 tact switches.

If I have time i will make a new video showing it closed with screws and without glitches in the screen.

How i Did my software side:

This install will take about 1,5 hours

First download the 2016-03-25-28c.img.

Make sd img from 2016-03-25-28c.img

Boot in Raspberry pi, let it boot in to startx and then quit it to command line
And launch Raspi-config: (sudo raspi-config)

Always start by expanding filesystem ( most builds do this but i recommend it anyway)

The choose 3 boot options and select console autologin.

Last things: 1 Overscan disable, 4 SSH Enable, 5 Device tree Enable, 6 SPI 7 I2C and  8 Serial disable, 9 Audio force 3.5mm headphone jack.

Side note for those how need Tochscreen: I disable 6, 7 and 8 to get more Gpio pins working
but this will disable touchscreen control.
But this is not needed for this project anyway. And also you can make another SD card that can use the Touchscreen interface but you will lose the Gpio pins that use SPI, I2C and Serial.

Install retropi:

 Start by updateing an upgrading your pi.

Run following commando’s to install RetroPie

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install -y git dialog
cd /~/
git clone –depth=1 https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup.git
cd RetroPie-Setup
chmod +x retropie_setup.sh
sudo ./retropie_setup.sh

Install binary-based installation. (get cup of coffee or something)

in case kernel crash. happen to my a few times…..
(Reason a faulty usb power device…. raspberry don’t like)

sudo dpkg –configure -a

then

sudo apt-get autoremove

And try again… when successful exit don’t reboot.

We gonna install framebuffer first. (by Andrew From Melbourne)

sudo apt-get install cmake
sudo apt-get install libbsd-dev
Create file: /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-fbdev.conf
sudo nano /usr/share/X11/xorg.conf.d/99-fbdev.conf

add in nano

 Section “Device”

Identifier “myfb”
Driver “fbdev”
Option “fbdev” “/dev/fb1″
EndSection

Close Nano and Save ( CTRL+X, Yes, ENTER)

cd .. ( goto home cd /~/ will do just fine)

git clone https://github.com/AndrewFromMelbourne/raspi2fb
cd raspi2fb/

mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
sudo cp ../raspi2fb@.service /etc/systemd/system/
sudo systemctl daemon-reload
sudo systemctl enable raspi2fb@1.service
sudo systemctl start raspi2fb@1

Almost done:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure console-setup

Select “UTF-8”, “Guess optimal character set”, “Terminus” and “6×12 (framebuffer only).”

Last edits before reboot.

sudo nano /boot/config.txt

sudo nano /etc/emulationstation/themes/carbon/carbon.xml

Close Nano and Save ( CTRL+X, Yes, ENTER)

sudo reboot

And check if everything is still working if you want to add your own controls continue below

Adding Controls:

cd /~/
git clone https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-Retrogame
cd Adafruit-Retrogame

nano retrogame.c

Edit the file retrogame.c, looking for the table called ioStandard  and the input.h table. Each line in brackets represents one pin on the GPIO header and a corresponding key code.
The full list of available keycodes can be found in /usr/include/linux/input.h

My setup:

// Input Output (from /usr/include/linux/input.h)
{ 22, KEY_LEFT }, // Joystick (4 pins)
{ 14, KEY_RIGHT },
{ 17, KEY_DOWN },
{ 4, KEY_UP },
{ 2, KEY_LEFTCTRL }, // A/Fire/jump/primary
{ 3, KEY_LEFTALT }, // B/Bomb/secondary
{ 15, KEY_5 }, // Credit
{ 18, KEY_1 }, // Start 1P
{ -1, -1 } }, // END OF LIST, DO NOT CHANGE

After editing, compile and install the code with:

make retrogame
sudo mv retrogame /usr/local/bin

Test fist before making something boot that is not working.

sudo /usr/local/bin/retrogame &

It works!

sudo nano /etc/rc.local

sudo nano /etc/udev/rules.d/10-retrogame.rules

Copy and paste this line exactly into the new file:

SUBSYSTEM==”input”, ATTRS{name}==”retrogame”, ENV{ID_INPUT_KEYBOARD}=”1″

Reboot and you should now have “virtual” keys associated with GPIO buttons.

Or make it more fancy:

HOW TO HIDE BOOT TEXT:

sudo nano /boot/cmdline.txt

Add splach screen

Adding a splash screen can be done from in retropie so this is optional. but this way you know what is changed in retropie to show the splashscreen at start up, same method.
Custom Splash Screen for Raspberry Pi

This is a quick and dirty solution for an unanimated custom splash screen during boot.

First of all, you need to install fbi:

apt-get install fbi

Copy your custom splash image to /etc/ and name it “splash.png”

example code:

sudo mv splash.png /etc/init.d/

Next, create an init.d script called “asplashscreen” in “/etc/init.d/”.

sudo nano /etc/init.d/asplashscreen

I chose “asplashscreen” with an “a” at the beginning to be sure it starts first.

#! /bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: asplashscreen
# Required-Start:
# Required-Stop:
# Should-Start:
# Default-Start: S
# Default-Stop:
# Short-Description: Show custom splashscreen
# Description: Show custom splashscreen
### END INIT INFO
do_start () {

/usr/bin/fbi -T 1 -noverbose -a /home/pi/RetroPie/splashscreens/splash.png
exit 0
}

case “$1″ in
start|””)
do_start
;;
restart|reload|force-reload)
echo “Error: argument ‘$1′ not supported” >&2
exit 3
;;
stop)
# No-op
;;
status)
exit 0
;;
*)
echo “Usage: asplashscreen [start|stop]” >&2
exit 3
;;
esac

:

Then make that script executable and install it for init mode:

chmod a+x /etc/init.d/asplashscreen
insserv /etc/init.d/asplashscreen

Reboot and watch your custom splash screen:

sudo reboot

If everything is correct you still boot in console but now is everything setup to start retropie

Start by typing:

emulationstation

After the startup you need to setup you fresh made controls by pressing one of the keys and then follow the onscreen text. Skipping by holding down one button.

After that your done and can start adding roms, you have 2 options for this by usb or by samba.

So you probably need to set that up 2 lucky for us you can do this from in emulationstation

choose retropie setup from the menu.

The let it boot directly in to emulationstation.
Next Samba: Oleee

and if you did’t follow my splashscreen install you can choose it here:

For now i leave this project to rest, i am glad whit the progress that i made.
also after 6 months I can close the case 😀 hooray!!!

Recap of what to do:
-Fix asla error….
-Build power cartridge for power.
-Build in speaker
-Extend usb to connector port and replace it by usb.