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  • Author Author: dougw
  • Date Created: Date Created
  • Views 3369 views
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  • Comments 12 comments
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PiCade Build and Test

dougw

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As a finisher prize in the PiCasso Design Challenge I received a Pimoroni PiCade and a Raspberry Pi 3B+ to power it.

This blog is is an unboxing / build / test of that system.

The build actually took several hours and getting the software properly configured took a bunch more hours.

The kit is complete (except for the Raspberry Pi and a power supply) and there were even some spare parts left over (I assume they are spare parts image)

Every thing fit without being forced and it seems solidly designed.

The only mechanical issue I had was the spade terminals connecting to the power switch LED were too tight - they need to be carefully opened up a bit.

The buttons don't snap into place because the panels are too thick for the switch design, but they are a tight enough fit that I don't expect them to pop out. If the do get too loose, a dab of glue would solve it.

The display is much higher resolution and quality than the TVs these games were originally developed for, so in some ways it has a modern look and feel to it, right down to longer boot times.

I found it was possible to hang the system up in a state where no button does anything - even the power button. Part of the problem might be that when setting up the button preferences, I couldn't set the Hot key - it wouldn't accept any buttons I wanted, so it defaulted to the Select button. The Hot key sort of exits from the current program when pushed. However in some menus this prevents selecting a menu choice and jumps back to another menu in an endless cycle.  In particular I cannot "select" to change the Hot key. Hopefully there is a file or something I can edit to fix it.

If you are building one in North America, beware that the keyboard default is set for the UK and you will have to set the keyboard to "US" before you can follow the installation instructions.

There is a pretty good guide to building here:

https://learn.pimoroni.com/tutorial/sandyj/assembling-your-picade

It is pretty impressive that games developed for multiple platforms can run on this system and it is a very nice scale to enjoy the gaming experience, but it is quite a bit more complex than your average game box. Just the assembly alone is quite a project, and you pretty much need a a keyboard and another computer to get everything working properly.

Overall, the PiCade is a pretty solid system that can take the kind of pounding typically encountered in action games, so although you can run Retropie on any Raspberry Pi, if you want the console and arcade experience you will have to build something like this.

  • in reply to dougw

    A very complex issue... No idea, to be honest. Maybe you find the same games on the net (maybe cracked)?

  • in reply to balearicdynamics

    Yes, Amiga emulation is certainly possible on a Pi and on the PiCade, however all my Amiga software is on 880K floppy disks, which are not (easily) readable on an IBM style 720K floppy drive. My Amiga has no way of transferring floppy data to modern digital media, assuming the disks are still readable. Add to that, many of those old games had insane methods of copy protection on the disks, which was dependent on precise disk timing when vibrating the read head, and nasty stuff like laser induced dead patches on the disk. The game would try to write to a precisely located dead patch - if it was successful, then the disk was a copy and the game wouldn't run.

  • in reply to ntewinkel

    One cat did make an appearance - I wasn't letting him mess with all the little parts, but he was happy enough fooling around with the boxes off-screen. His methods of playing with boxes are as hilarious as they are inexplicable.

    The assembly time had a lot to do with trying to capture the process on video without making a bunch of mistakes - it is amazing how much time that adds to the effort. You periodically need to check the video to make sure it was a good take so you don't end up having to disassemble and re-shoot. Of course there is a lot more video shot than ever makes it to the blog. My camera sees a lot more hours of use than any instrument I own, except the computer. The time it takes to edit and upload video is a huge variable, but it can easily take 1 hour per minute of finished video. I usually spend a few hours for a 15 minute video even when this type of assembly spot checking is not needed.

  • in reply to dougw

    Doug, if you have Amiga games (no idea what is the support but I imagine a sort of file or set of files on contemporary digital support) probably what should be saw is if it is possible to set up an Amiga emulator on the Pi. In this case, but I have no idea if it is, it is not difficlt to integrate the PiCade HAT (as well as the case hardware etc) on a PI supporting this kind of emulation. Then, just add a USB keyboard from the back for settings and the game is ready.

  • in reply to balearicdynamics

    I am referring to a large collection of Amiga games that I purchased way back when I was running my Amiga.

    I also tried downloading some Amiga games from the internet, but so far they are not complete games, usually just an intro screen shot.