Cheapest possible Recalbox with RPI 3

[Seramis]

Hm OK:

The pi zero can be bought at pihut. What essentials should be bought to have this as easy as possible?

• pi zero
• micro sd card
• power supply

Which adapters shall I also oder? Is this a thing?
https://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi/products/raspberry-pi-zero?variant=14062715972

The goal is just to help them create something valuable to their own with as less help as possible and without the fear of breaking something costly. Furthermore the pi is so flexible that they can move to other projects on there own. Computer Science is so boring here in Germany. You never get to see your results, it all happens on the screen. I want to do a bit of programming first, work with raspbian, get it going via the terminal. The gaming console would happen at the end of the year, as a gift so to say.

[voljega]

@Seramis I think you mistake Computer Science for robotic, electronic or something, it's perfectly normal for result to appear on the screen in a Computer Science course, heck that's what Computer Science is all about.

[Seramis]

@voljega Sorry I'm a non native speaker, I chose the wrong word. You are right. The thing is that we program robots on screen and they never see it happen. They are also incredibly afraid of dismantling hardware.
They aren't allowed to break things no more..., something incredibly wrong here in Germany. One has to see how things work in breaking them apart, this has to happen as a child. This isn't about money, there are things for children which are meant to be broken, but parents tell them to be overly cautious with everything. This drives me nuts. :-).

Anyhow we got things going and I am surprised how well everyone at school liked the idea. If this goes well I will publish the concept for free.

Getting the pizero is still a thing, people are afraid of ordering elsewhere than Amazon.... Maybe I have to buy for the whole class.

I have to say that I still can't believe their reaction that they actually admire old games being 15 years old and growing up with CoD. Some girls like to do a smartphone casing with LED lights, we will fetch an Arduiono for this. But many go for the pi version, I will have a look at kano first, see if they aren't to old for this.

[Substring]

@Seramis http://www.whereismypizero.com/
adafruit is in USA, so better not order from them
pihut is in UK, pimoroni seems english too, i'm not sure. Anyway both can be trusted
A pi 0 is very cheap. Unless you fail the soldering of the GPIO (hich can happen with kids who are not used to solder), breaking the card is not a big loss but for their project.
One thing for pi0 : it uses mini hdmi and mini usb, so they'll probably need some adapters to have a display + plug something. Remember it has only 1 usb port, so they'll need to switch between a keyboard and a pad or a wifi dongle to configure recalbox

[Seramis]

I ordered at PiHut and got myself the mega kit with everything one needs. Unfortunately my class ends a bit sooner as planned but I am going to get a new class. So for the current we are just building a retro gaming station as easy as possible because we only have 6 lessons a 45 minutes left and I see that gpio tricks aren´t a good idea without the theoretical knowledge about them.

But: I would like to do a more ambitioned project with the next course. I am wildly fascinated about the gpio pins myself, I can solder but electritians would wildly go mad about my work, because it´s not too beautifull. Consider me a beginner with electronics (I can build a pc, I know very much about Software, but electricity is something I tried to avoid so far.)
One here had the idea to use old controllers and wire them to the gpios of the pi. I think this is exactly what we should be doing instead of buying cheap china ware (nothing against those, but I feel this is all about trying to do as much on your own as you possibly could).

The thing is: I don´t want to solder at school. The group is pretty large and I don´t feel comfortable with that. Is it possible to use a breadboard instead and what do I need to buy for that? Again, this needs to be as cheap as possible!

I have made a list but I am not too sure about this. We are going to use the RPI3 and the PiZero, depending on the portemonaie of the pupils:

This is the T-Cobbler Plus (Does it work with both the RPI and the Zero? The pins look the same to me.
https://www.amazon.de/Sintron-T-Cobbler-Extension-Rainbow-Raspberry/dp/B00NWA2AS0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484646900&sr=8-1&keywords=gpio+to+breadboard

And then a breadboard or rather a complete set like this here:
https://www.amazon.de/Sintron-T-Cobbler-Extension-Breadboard-Raspberry/dp/B00WSXXLZS/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1484648086&sr=8-5&keywords=gpio+to+breadboard

I am not a pro with this and I am going to test this at home way before going into classrooms with this. In my eyes this could serve as testing out the gpio setup, before doing soldering right? I imagine them doing this at class, so I can see if their setup works and then I will solder their setup at home.

[Substring]

@Seramis Both look fine, yes
If you're lazy at soldering, i found that not too long ago : https://shop.pimoroni.com/collections/raspberry-pi/products/gpio-hammer-header

For old controllers : you can use the gamecon driver, which preserves the original connectors. Beware, as we've had problem with the PSX pads, you can use only one for now.

[Seramis]

This is already a part of the box, but a nice addition for others reading this! Thanks.

[paradadf]

@Seramis this might be interesting for you as well (concerning roms):

https://forum.recalbox.com/topic/4560/mame-roms-for-free-download-authorized-by-original-authors

https://forum.recalbox.com/topic/5230/the-vectrex-project

[Seramis]

Today school freaked out about my project class. Parents have called my school to tell them that their kids are interested in stuff, they never would have thought they are capable of. Now I was handed a class 5, 7 in addition to my 10 starting in February - so in about two weaks from now. There is no concept but we are allowed to do soldering and much more. I was encouraged to help them realize their own project, no matter what that may be (some girls are doing a smartphone case with a pizero and lights). This came out of nowhere because normally video gaming is considered a bad thing. Thank you very much for the vectrex project, this will become in handy for the older pupils.
I think it would be nice to built some cool retro gaming consoles with serious games for the little ones. Their own ones. This is going to be fun.

Oh I need something:
A really cheap hdmi monitor for the pi, large enough that you could to some programming, I am thinking about KANO here. But not too large. It should be powered in the same manner as the rpi via mini-usb. Any recommendations? Cheap it must, Yoda would say.

https://kano.me/store/eu/products/kano-complete

What about this here?
https://www.amazon.de/dp/B01HPV7FMC/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=O4C92PJPQ1OF&coliid=IFUPPPWKOFNHM&psc=1
I see that I need the GPIOs here to get the touch function right? The other model, which costs 3 € has the option that you will have the touch function via usb. Are there any disadvantages? I would rather go for the GPIO version... .

[Substring]

@ian57 any screen advice fitting OP's needs ?

[Seramis]

@Substring No specific needs. We don´t need large resolutions. But on screen text shall be readable, HDMI plug and play (to make it easier), if it has touch function ok, but this is not mandatory because we will only need it as a screen. I intend to make them do their own boxes. A DIY PC for the young ones and a retro gaming console for the older ones.

LOL... I had to look up OP, now I know

[ian57]

@Seramis @Substring this one is more expensive but 7" and 1024x600 http://www.banggood.com/7-Inch-1024-x-600-HDMI-Capacitive-IPS-LCD-Display-For-Raspberry-Pi-Banana-Pi-p-1059318.html?rmmds=search

5" can be good too http://www.banggood.com/5-Inch-HDMI-TFT-LCD-Touch-Screen-For-Raspberry-PI-2-Model-B-B-A-B-p-977667.html?rmmds=search

[Substring]

@Seramis Original Poster
touch is not effective on recalbox, you should know it
Now, we are talking about a pi0 + a HDMI screen ... are we heading to the right direction still ? maybe you should consider several budgets, depending on what they want to do

[Seramis]

Hi there, yeah, I am considereing different budget projects and I think I have a strategy to trick the parents into buying all salami tactic style. But it is well worth the experience and the money.

I consider them buying either a PiZero or a RPi3, and I will explain them the basics (as well as the differences between the two) beforehand. Then I will make sure, that we are going to build a system on the basis of kano. We are going to add everything that we see fit or appropiate. So the system gets larger and larger but only with meaningfull parts.

We may add a screen, if desired or a small audio output system. The parents will receive the costs beforehand but they can decide what their children need and what they already have at home. If someone doesn´t want to by a screen for 30-40 €, the child may also attach the rpi to one of our screens at school. There is an adapter issue there, but we can also ssh into it, so no problem there.

Some may want to build a spycam or sensors or an internet radio. The Recalbox is my giveaway at the end of the year. We will also talk about copyright there, so that they know what to expect and what not.

At topic there:
I bought a five inch screen with touch, and I know that it doesn´t work with recalbox, but I am using raspbian too and I thought it would be nice to have as an addition. I have managed to alter the config.txt via putty and I also changed the recalbox.conf via the web interface. However I do have an issue with N64 games, wich is only minor, but there. I have also read a thread for that specific display which can be found here in the forum, but the Thread Starter doesn´t seem to use n64, so the issue is not explained there. I think it has to do with the native solution though. So here is my display:

http://www.waveshare.com/wiki/5inch_HDMI_LCD
By the way it is ok. You can´t do anything wront here. The nativ resolution is said to be:
hdmi_mode=87
hdmi_cvt 800 480 60 6 0 0 0

This is the tutorial I followed:
https://github.com/recalbox/recalbox-os/wiki/TFT5-Screen-HDMI-(EN)
Works like a charm, except for N64 games.

I wrote this in the recalbox.conf:
n64.core=gliden64
n64.emulator=mupen64plus
n64.ratio=16/9
n64.smooth=1

#n64.videomode=DMT 4 HDMI
n64.videomode=default

This results in the following: N64 games start in 4:3 but there is an edge right of the display where it isn´t used. It just stays blank. Altering the conf results in N64 games not starting at all or the screen turning white. I tried different DMT Modes except, resulting in either crashing or having weird formats where some parts are missing.
Is this due to the native resolution of n64 games and is there a solution to this? It is not a big issue though I could live trough this.

[Substring]

@Seramis N64 is 4:3 whereas your screen is 800/480 => 5:3 so yes, black borders on the side (which should anyway happen with any emulator)

Have you set global.videomode=default AND n64.videomode=default in your recalbox.conf ?

[Seramis]

@Substring I did. I thought about such a thing. Then it is ok I guess.

[Seramis]

Ok here is another thing I need a display capable of displaying 1024768 or higher. It should be cheap. Unfortunately there are only 1024600 devices out there. Touch would be nice but is not Obligatory.

[Seramis]

Ok then, my Pizero has arrived and Kano works like a charm. I have just tested my recalbox build but the software doesn´t start. It hangs on the boot screen forever. So I started fresh and got myself the image from Github, erased my sd card with the formater and placed everything inside. However the Pizero still hangs at the bootscreen.

If I put the very same imgae in my pi3 it works. What´s wrong?

[Seramis]

@Seramis Solved it myself. The issue was soley usb port related. The Pizero doesn not seem to like two devices capable of giving power output. I have used a china hub without energy and it works well. Curious thing though.

[Seramis]

@Seramis Ok this is weird. Recalbox only starts when a keyboard is enabled, even though I have a Bluetooth Controller working that fits perfectly for controlling the overlay. No Keyboard, no Recalbox on Pizero. Any ideas?