First shot

Configuring the emulator proved to be a little bit difficult. The information I found regarding this was rather vague and different sources did not seem to describe the same problem. Finally I resorted to just firing up the system to see what happened. What I found was that there seemed to be very little that needed doing. I told the system to use my keyboard for the time being, since I have no joystick at hand to connect to my adapter (it has arrived!). After this I could choose among a few emulators but since I had no ROMs (game files) all I could do was starting a few ported gamed that were availible. That worked fine, so I did some reading to find out how to transfer game files to the Raspberry. I chose to activate samba sharing of the game file directories and connect the system to my local network. Transferring a few games was then as simple as dragging and dropping the files into the C64 game file directory. I had a few game files (disk images) that I have kept from my C64 collection of old. From what I have read it may be possible to find game files in other ways if you are prepared to be a little bit "creative".

Using the game files it was very easy to get the games working. First I thought it had all frozen, but then I turned off "true disk speed", which made loading a LOT quicker. I had forgot how slow the C64 disk drive was! After configuring Vice (the C64 emulator) to use the keyboard as joystick I could finally actually play a game. The C64 games I tried worked perfectly, as far as I could see. When I tried an Amiga game it worked as long as I did not press the fire button. When I did the game restarted, which of course made it unplayable.

I have now also bought a game pad to use until I come home and can use a real joystick. It is a NES controller, and although not very 64-ish it gives a much better experience than using the keyboard. Attaching the game pad made it work with a minimum of configuration work. I have also added heat sinks to all major chips on the Raspberry. This is just in case I find the need for overclocking. To make space for the heatsinks I had to do some cutting in the box. This was also surprisingly simple and took only half an hour, despite being rather careful.

What needs to be done now is configuring the system so that no configuring is needed during everyday operation. I want my wife to be able to just start the system and play the games she is fond of, which will not be possible if you need to open the Vice config system. A related thing is the need for a reset button so that you can leave Vice and return to where you choose the game to play without having to give commands to Vice. But all in all it has worked very well so far. I am very happy. :-)

Unpacking and trial installation

Unpacking and putting the Raspberry in its box was equally easy. I am beginning to see why people like this product. This is all the stuff I bought.

And after two minutes of work I had a properly fitted Raspberry Pi. :-)

I followed the instructions from here to install the Retropie SD image. Installation worked just like it should and I inserted the SD card into the Raspberry and connected the cables and fired it up. I was greeted by a boot screen and after little while the system complained about not finding any game controllers. I went into command line mode and used raspi-config to make some initial configurations before pausing my work in the project for now. I am very happy with how easy it has been so far. My next step will be to read up on the configuration system and do what has to be done there, before moving on to the emulation functionality. 

Some details

As a first step I will go for a system capable of playing C64 games. If and when that works, Amiga functionality will be added.

I have done some reading and found several other people with the same basic idea. However, it seems that usually people want to put the emulator hardware into an old C64, so as to make it look as similar as possible to the original "bread box". This is not what I want. I want something that is user friendly, looks neat and is easy to bring on a trip or a vacation. For this reason I will not choose the original physical format, but rather "as small as possible".

After lots of further reading I have decided to use a Raspberry Pi, since it is cheap, well documented (at least I hope so) and other people have succeded in making C64 emulator boxes with it, see for example here, here and here, as well as many others).

So my shopping list was this:

• Raspberry Pi 2 Model B (top of the line model means it should be powerful enough)
• Box for fitting the Raspberry
• 8 GB high speed microSD (high speed is sometimes mentioned as necessary or preferable)
• USB charger, 2.1 A with a 3 meter cable
• Cheap USB keyboard and mouse

The Raspberry was the single most costly part and constituted about one third of the total cost of SEK 1300, roughly equivalent of USD 140 or EUR 130. Had I not been on vacation I could have reused an old keyboard, mouse and USB charger and cut about one third of the cost, making it quite cheap.

My preliminary plan as of now is to use Retropie, which is an SD card image for the Raspberry Pi, containing emulators for a huge number of retro gaming machines, including the C64 and the Amiga. It also has support for connection original NES controllers directly to the Raspberry, but unfortunately there is no such support for Atari type joysticks, as used by the C64 and the Amiga. Instead I have ordered a joystick-to-USB adapter from here. I ordered it a week ago, and it should arrive in another week or so. From what you can read on the internet it works like a charm. It cost another 30 Canadian dollars (roughly SEK 200, USD 25, EUR 20).

So far I have not even unpacked the Raspberry, and the joystick adapter is somewhere in the international s-mail system. More reports will follow as I continue this project.

Project Idea

As a summer project I have decided to try to build an emulator capable of playing some of my old favorite games. For me that means an emulator for a C64 and/or an Amiga 500. The exact specification will be decided later but it is essential that it is possible to use an original joystick.