Retro Gaming Just In-case

retro-gaming-just-in-case

You can look and look, but you won’t find a Super Nintendo inside of this retro gaming rig. [Webrow] is giving his vintage hardware a rest, and taking this all-in-one game emulator suitcase wherever he goes.

The machine at the heart of his build is of course a Raspberry Pi. You really can’t beat the ubiquitous board for cost, power, and hardware extensibility. An LCD panel from a broken laptop comes along for the ride having been mounted in the lid. For a long time there was no hope for reusing these panels, but [Webrow] found an adapter board (for nearly the same price as the RPi) which converts the DVI from the Pi to the LVDS needed by the screen. The connections and mounting scheme for the screen were where most of the project work was done. Connecting the controllers simply involved soldering some SNES controller sockets to an RPi breakout connector. We do have to compliment him on the red bezel which hides all of the power cords and other unsightly bits. The case look sturdy and ready to play!

Coin-op Sega Rally Used To Race RC Cars

Head to head video game action can’t even compare to this use of a coin-op Sega Rally game to race actual RC vehicles. Take a close look at those screens and you’ll see there are no computer graphics, just a feed for a camera on each of the toy cars.

The project was conceived for the Sapo Codebits VI conference in Portugal. The arcade cabinets had their controls connected to an Arduino, but getting video up and running wasn’t nearly as easy. After fruitless attempts to get the original CRTs to work the team ended up replacing them with functioning CRT units of the same size. The cars themselves have two camera, one on top of the vehicle’s cab and one mounted on a boom for a perspective that was above and behind the vehicle. The drivers can switch between either view. The cars were set loose in the room serving as the event’s retro gaming area and players were free to race each other wherever they pleased. Don’t miss the video clip after the break which shows off all of the fun. Continue reading “Coin-op Sega Rally Used To Race RC Cars”