Create your own Retro Gaming machine!

Did you miss out on the NES Classic last year? Or even the SNES Classic that was released a few days ago? Or maybe you're just interested in some retro gaming to bring back some child hood nostalgia.

Whatever your reasons are, you're not alone. Fortunately for you there is a solution to have both NES, SNES and many other consoles all wrapped into 1 retro gaming machine.

Let’s start out with what you will need. I’ll break it down into 2 categories and explain why everything is needed.

Hardware

1. Raspberry Pi 3 kit (Raspberry Pi 3, power supply and HDMI cable) – This is going to be your main piece of hardware. Every computer needs a motherboard and processor, this is what the Raspberry Pi is built into 1 small piece.
   

2. Micro SD card (16GB or higher) – This is where the operating system and games will be stored. The bigger your card is the more games you can hold.
   

3. USB Card Reader – You’ll need a way to write to the micro SD card, I know some laptops already have a SD slot built into them, and if that’s the case all you’ll need is the adapter.
   

4. Bluetooth USB dongle – This is only going to be required if you want to use bluetooth controllers. Wired ones work perfectly fine.
   

5. Controllers - There are a few different kinds you can get, it's really all personal preference. For my setup I have some Playstation 3 controllers and 8bitdo SN30's connected using bluetooth.
   

Software

1. Etcher – This is a freeware used to write ISO files to any disk. I’m sure there are others out there but this is the one I have been using for a while now. You can download Etcher here.

2. MegaDownloader – This is required to download the ROM packs from arcadepunks. It was my first time using it, but I’ve had friends who have used it previously and have not had any issues. There is a download link to in this arcadepunks forum thread.

3. 7-zip – Or any decompression tool. I personally use 7-zip. You can download it here

Once you have all the things I listed above you can follow the instructions below.

1. Navigate to the Arcadepunks Retro Pi ROM download page here.
   There are hundreds of packs you can download and it all really depends on the size of your SD card. What I did was sort the installs by Date Added (newest first) and selected one from the top of the list.
   

2. Once you've located the pack that you are interested in click on the link and make sure [MEGA] or [MEGA.NZ] are beside it.
   
   If you would like to know more information about the pack you can click on READ NFO

3. You will be directed to an adfly page. Just wait a few seconds and then you will be able to click SKIP AD in the top right corner.
   

4. Select the URL in the address bar and copy it. This will automatically launch MegaDownloader.
   

5. Select your destination path and then click Add.
   

6. Once the download has completed. Extract the ISO.
   

7. Open Etcher and click Select image
   

8. Plug in your micro SD card to your USB card reader. This will automatically be selected as the destination in Etcher unless you have multiple USB storage devices plugged in, then you may need to select the right one.
   

9. Click Flash!

It took roughly 30 minutes to flash the 16GB rom pack I downloaded. Etcher will go through the process of flashing and then verifying, the verifying stage takes just as long as the flashing stage.

Once the process has completed you can put the micro SD card into the Raspberry Pi 3 and hook it up to your TV using HDMI.

The last step is to setup the controller, when you first turn on the Raspberry Pi it will prompt you to setup the controller. After that you are set!

My girlfriend playing Super Mario 3 for NES

Thanks for reading everyone!