Pi-START

 Today I decide to focus on how to reuse your old Mega Drive Gamepad and/or Arcade Power Stick as an USB device, on your PC, Android device or on you Raspberry/Orange Pi.   If you are not familiar whit my blog, I'm working on a project to rebuild my friend's old Mega Drive to a new state of the art console using, of course, the latests Pi's version.   First of all, I will focus on the oldest Mega Drive gamepads, but this project is also compatible whit any of the 3 button or 6 button version.  I recommend if you want a DIY approach, you need to have some soldering skills, otherwise, I also have a solution for you here .  This idea started many years ago, but only with the fast grown of the Arduino devices, this turns to be a fast-to-do possibility and do not require some really hard electronic and coding skills.  This project born after I meet Jarno , a very cool Finnish guy that publish on the RetroOrangePi Facebook Group his latest "project"...

Hello there again.  As I promise, I will start this rebuilding blog whit my friend's Mega Drive 1 which is completely dead :(. If you don't remember, it's this version (European). I miss a lot playing Sonic 1, Jurassic Park, Desert Strike... oooh, good old times.  So I started to disassemble the old console, which is not that difficult. Just turn over the console and remove all the 6 screws that are hidden inside those six holes whit a normal Philips screwdriver.  Don't forget to keep the screws in a safe place, you will need them later. Now you have be very careful when you open it, at least the European version have a small wire that connects the power led that is on the top part of the case. In this case that is showed on the photo, the wire is long, but mine was not, and I almost damaged the led.  So, try to open it like this. You may also have a metal lid over it, remove all the screws and try to it looks like the picture above.  The f...

Hello World! I decided to start this blog to show the world what can do and what be done whit a dead console. I've seen many project's around the internet, but none of them fit my needs, or my taste. One of the main problems I've found (and you can see them everywhere) is the total annihilation of the "specs", like converting the old ports in to USB ports, or removing some aesthetics that define the old feeling of retro gaming. If you do like retro gaming, you'll definitely want to play whit you old and original gamepad. I decided that my future projects will, as it possible it can be, have to maintain the most similar feeling and look as the original. Of course I'll have to do some changing, and evolutions (wi-fi, bluetooth, etc.), but if I do them, they have to be completely invisible (almost any wi-fi antennae can fit inside any box). Another further objective is to make the things most modular as possible. As you may already understood, I'...