Last retro console hack before I get back into programming some robots. I'm taking my original C64 breadbox that I grew up with and replacing the internals so I can play ALL THE GAMES without needing ALL THE DISKS! It'll have a raspberry pi running Retro Pie with LR-Vice and two Arduino's emulating the keyboard and both joysticks. Voila! Instance awesomeness for retro gaming fun
This should be one of the easiest and quickest physical console hacks - because the joysticks will be the same as my Atari 2600 hack, so the arduino code shouldn't change. As for the keyboard, I found a github repo for Arduino Micro where someone already created the matrix of keystrokes. Their code is quite clean and I'm most likely going to use it.
Since Raspberry Pi no longer sells cheap $35 computers.... I'm using a $69.99 Raspberry Pi 4 2gb [rant]not happy about that price [/rant]
The most challenging part, I believe, will be configuring the Retro Pie emulator. I did a few searches on my phone last night and didn't see a great plug'n'play setup with Retro Pie. Wait, anyone surprised? Yah, me neither! But, isn't that the joy of it all! So I'll probably spend most of the hack configuring the Retro Pie Vice emulator for the C64.
Here's the source code for the USB keyboard and joystick: https://github.com/DJSures/Commodore-64-USB-Keyboard
I will be watching. but watching you play games,all night. maybe the reruns tomorrow. Have fun! that's all that matters.xD