Credit: Andrew Cunningham
Stay on target The Raspberry Pi Is Great At Digitizing Your Old-Timey Videos Make Your Raspberry Pi More Festive By Turning It Into A Christmas Tree
It’s no secret that the NES Classic Edition consoles are notoriously difficult to procure. When you do find them on sale for their usual $60 retail price, you can’t get them. Sites crash, they disappear from your shopping cart, and things go haywire. You could turn to eBay, but nothing the console can offer is worth paying sometimes quadruple the price. One Ars Technica author, Andrew Cunningham , took it upon himself to create a comparable (and arguably better) version of the machine.
For Cunningham’s homemade NES Classic, he set out with a few rules. He wanted to spend about as much money as the retail unit would require, which is about $60, though it could come out to about $100 by including Amazon points. The item needed to be similar in size to the NES Classic, perform well enough to emulate 8- and 16-bit consoles, include Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for wireless controllers and networking, a relatively simple user interface and attractive UI.
Pi fits in perfectly. via arstechnica.com
He ended up choosing a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B, Samsung’s 64GB EVO Select card, the official Raspberry Pi 3 case, and two Buffalo Classic USB Gamepads. The total for materials ended up around $92, which is a steal considering the prices the NES Classic Edition is currentlygoingfor.
There’s a very lengthy and helpful write-up detailing Andrew’s process if you’re interested in following it yourself or creating something similar, or if you’re just curious about how it was made in general. It’s a fact that this is a fairly simple console to dupe if you’re looking to put in work. If you’re handy, you could even recreate the look of a regular Nintendo Entertainment System. Either way, this is an awesome challenge, especially if you’re handy with tech. It would certainly make a great holiday gift.