Hardware/Components Checklist?

[dcr1]

Hello.

First, let me apologize in advance for asking any stupid questions or questions that have been asked and answered previously but that I’ve overlooked in my browsing and searching of the site.

After quite some time of trying to decide whether to try a BeagleBoard or the Raspberry Pi, the RetroPie project sold me on giving Raspberry Pi a try.

The emulators I am most interested in running are Basilisk II, RetroArch (for Atari 2600) and Sega Megadrive/Genesis. LinApple would be a bonus, but I thought I read that emulator is no longer updated and wasn’t quite ready for prime time or something?

I’ve dug through a number of posts and threads on this site, so I have a reasonable level of confidence I know where all the info I need is to install RetroPi once I have the Raspberry Pi ready to go. But, insofar as setting up the hardware is concerned, is there a checklist of components needed?

Here is what I’ve figured I need:
* Raspberry Pi
* power supply
* SD card
* case
* keyboard/mouse
* display cable
* display
* game controller

As far as the game controller goes, I have Atari 2600 and Sega Genesis controllers. From posts I read on here, I can use an Atari-to-USB adapter cable to connect the Atari controller to the Raspberry Pi (and then do some software configuration to get it to recognize all the directional buttons). But what about the Sega Genesis controllers? What would I need to connect those? They are currently boxed up, so I’m not sure what kind of connector they have.

Is there anything I’m missing? Too often with these kinds of projects, I get everything I think I need, go to work on putting everything together and discover some important component I either overlooked or didn’t realize I needed. I’m trying to avoid that here.

Thanks for any assistance!

[doanerock]

I would like to add this tidbit of advise. If you have a wired network, then you can set up the Raspberry Pi using a separate laptop/computer with out a keyboard and or mouse for the Raspberry Pi. Simply ssh to the Raspberry Pi once it boots up and make all your changes that way.

Need to have a way to write the image to the SD card.

[trimmtrabb]

Before you buy anything check the verified peripherals list: http://elinux.org/RPi_VerifiedPeripherals

Regarding power supplies you need at least a 1A psu, or a usb hub if you are using several peripherals at once, I recommend this one it can power the Pi as well: http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B001GXR6XO/ref=mp_s_a_1_94?qid=1402940552&sr=8-94&pi=SL75

Also important is a good quality micro usb cable and SD card. Good luck :-)

[dcr1]

Thanks doanerock and trimmtrabb.

I have a SD card reader for my laptop and I’ve read the options for writing an image to the SD card so I should be good there. The power supply I found is a 2A, so I should be good there.

Thanks for the reminder on the micro USB cable, trimmtrabb. I have a mini USB cable on hand, but not a micro USB cable, so I do need that.

[InsecureSpike]

also, for future reference, if you find you require a usb hub, make sure its one of the approved powered ones!

[dcr1]

Okay, I have it more or less working. LinApple appears to work, though I haven’t transferred any disks to it yet to see how well it works. Basilisk II runs. Had some problems at first, but once I followed the tips offered by Raygan Kelly in another thread, it seems to work better. The Atari 2600 emulator and Sega Genesis emulators seem to run as well.

Issues:
* I cannot seem to use the \ key on the keyboard. My keyboard (Macally) is on the approved list, but I get a block character instead of a \ character, which doesn’t function the same, especially when I need to \ a space in a filename with spaces.
* Mapping game controls to the keyboard seems not to work out well. The Atari emulator, for example, wouldn’t recognize the key I had mapped as the “fire” button.
* Either the Atari-to-USB cable I bought is defective or my old controllers are no good. I suspect the latter more than the former, but, short of digging out the old Atari system, I don’t have a way of verifying. I imagine I am better off buying something new. Is there a USB game controller that functions well as a “universal” game controller that could be used with Atari 2600 and Sega Genesis games?

For those that use their systems heavily, are you still using an SD card or are you configuring the Raspberry Pi to use a USB hard drive? Since SD cards have a limited number of read/writes, I’m curious if it’s better to run off a USB hard drive rather than the SD card.

Thanks again!

[Anonymous]

Sounds like a localisation issue.
In bash execute sudo raspi-config
then option 4 Internationalisation Options
Check your language and keyboard layout settings there.

In terms of the controller, if you have another controller that you could test on emulators that could be useful.

use jtest /dev/input/js0 to check that the buttons and axis are working. (ctrl+c to exit)

That will also give you the button numbers so you can then edit config files for each emulator and assign them.

Haven’t gone into using USB drives so can’t help there.

[dcr1]

[quote=8902]Sounds like a localisation issue.
In bash execute sudo raspi-config
then option 4 Internationalisation Options
Check your language and keyboard layout settings there.
[/quote]

Thanks! Didn’t find my keyboard in the list (though it is in the approved list on the Raspberry Pi site) but found something similar and that seems to be working so far.

[quote=8902]use jtest /dev/input/js0 to check that the buttons and axis are working. (ctrl+c to exit)

That will also give you the button numbers so you can then edit config files for each emulator and assign them.[/quote]

Thanks. I think you meant jstest /dev/input/js0 though. Anyway, went through all that (had some trouble figuring out how to do the axis settings though–had to do a bit of guesswork and online searches before I finally figured that out) and the controller is working now. (I have not yet hooked the original Atari controllers up and tested those with jstest.)

I am using this controller: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002B9XB0E/

Seems to work fine except the “Turbo” and “Clear” buttons don’t register as doing anything, not even with jstest.

Also, I am curious what I need to map to the controller so that I can run the system without using a keyboard. As it is now, I can select an emulator from EmulationStation and run a game but, once in a game, I cannot quit that game and go back to EmulationStation nor can I switch to another game in the same emulator.

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