Reflections
This Retro Video Gaming System was a fun challenge to build, configure and document.
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When I first started the project, I had high hopes to customize the project with an added switch to turn the device on and off with a simple button press. After extensive research and trial and error, I discovered that this would be too difficult for the scope of this project. I decided from that point on to focus on configuring the system to play games and to just include the option to add a button into the tutorial. See The Project for more details.
When I started to configure the software needed, there were a lot of hiccups to overcome and I ended up having to troubleshoot issues with previous documentation. This required me to basically build the system twice, first to make sure it was working correctly and second to make sure that my documentation was correct. Because of this, it took longer than I had expected it.
After getting the software configured correctly, I ran into problems finding and installing ROMs for games to play. There are a lot of dangerous websites out there that claim to provide ROMs but end up being malicious. After discovering the Legit sites, the next issue came when downloading the files. Due to the sheer amount of files to download, the website would restrict the download speed from their website; this made small files take much longer than expected to install. After successful download and extraction of the ROM, the next issue came when trying to play the game. Some ROMs just would not work and there was no indication to why. This meant that I would have to find a different file for the same game and test it out. This became tedious but I was finally able to locate genuine working games!
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The final difficulty that I encountered was the controller configuration. The Emulation Station software creates the main menu interface and allows you to map the controller buttons to the desired locations but if you map the keys to navigate the main menu, then the buttons are off when playing games. If you decide to map the controller for the emulators, then navigating the main menu is difficult. This is a design flaw on Emulation Station's part it is easy to get used to.
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Over all, this project turned out AWESOME! After fixing these issues, which were relatively minor, I was able to play the game of my childhood! Even starting the game gave me a huge wave of nostalgia, which increased as I played through the levels. It is very fun to play the games and although it can be a little glitchy, it was worth the time! I plan to take this to parties with my friends and family so that we can reminisce on all the games we played.
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