[Newark] Happy Easter - Latest project finally finished

[Craig Lynch]

Recently, having seen the SNES Classic was inbound from Nintendo I was asked to
gut an old SNES and put in a Pi into it. Seemed simple enough - just wire on
the controllers to the header and oh, of course it's never that simple! 
It turns out that Nintendo used some kind of CMOS in the controller. However,
the wonderful petrockblock https://blog.petrockblock.com/ had created a HAT 
almost just for this task.
The ControlBlock allowed the use of the normal controller electronics which 
were then passed onto the emulator of your choice. Easy peasy, just a
bit of fiddly soldering from old joints and we're off to the races. Along with
added functionality - the power switch, power indicator LED and reset button
were also able to be managed by the ControlBlock. Wonderful!
Unfortunately, I was also given a specific caveat. The user required that the 
cartridge still be able to be inserted and used in a fashion - based on how 
awkward looking the SNES classic looks without a faux cartridge header.
So, I decided I would extend one of the USB ports to the cartridge header so
storage or input could also be added via the cartridge. Somewhat fiddly making
good connections on the underside of the top portion of the cartridge interface
(in order to provide strain relief, Nintendo stacked the cartridge socket onto
the board via another set of pins).
Due to space limitations I wasn't able to keep the eject mechanism installed
but the 'cartridge' does work and one can plug in either a keyboard or other
USB device without opening the case to reach the Pi itself.
Software was easy, of course it's Retropie. I set up the device with USB keys
for storage of ROMS and other somesuch (one for SEGA, one for Nintendo, etc.)

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the result - looks like the real deal (except for
when playing Alex Kidd of course) and is incredibly flexible allowing play of 
many old titles with new and old controllers.

Pictures and Video at the next LUG meet.

C.