Raspberry Pi Questions

[tromboneninja]

I have absolutely no experience with the Raspberry Pi, and have never even owned one myself. However, I discovered them just recently and decided I wanted to buy one and test it out, but with a pretty ambitious project. I want to create a disk image for the Raspberry Pi where it's only purpose is to run emulators for older game consoles, that way I can 3D print casing for it and hook up all the buttons and and download the ROMS to make a type of mini universal gameboy. I've been doing a lot of research lately on where to start and I've heard that Java is a good language to do so in. I know basic Java but I'm not sure if I could create a mini operating system for a Raspberry Pi with it, or if Java is really even the type of language capable of doing so. C, C#, and C++ are suitable for doing so from what I've read, but they are also far more complex than Java. I guess what I'm trying to ask here is, where should I start? Should I play around with Raspbian and see if I can work with that, or would a home-made dedicated disk image be more practical?

I know I'm naive in this topic but that's why I'm here asking this question. Before you go there, I prefer not to use a disk image that is already made for playing retro games like Retro Pi. I'd like to create my own or something of the sort, not borrow someone else's.

Thanks in advance,

-Riley

 

[kanewolf]

You should start by writing many programs much less complex than an entire OS. You SHOULD use an existing emulator. If you can get the source code for it, then you can start learning from it and possibly improving it. Don't reinvent the wheel. Optimize the wheels that already exist.

 

[raspberrypiguy]

Retro Pi has support for mods for diy controllers. Ask the people at raspberrypi.org in their forms about the code to use. If I were you I would also checkout retropi.org. The people there deal with all kinds of emulation as retro pi itself has common emulators built in. Github has plans for 3d printed cases as you expressed interest in having one of them. They even have NES style cases for the retro look. There are online 3d print services available. I have a friend who has built a arcade machine and apparently it is not rocket science. There is plenty of help online just look at tutorials of how to do stuff.

 

[tromboneninja]

Retro Pi has support for mods for diy controllers. Ask the people at raspberrypi.org in their forms about the code to use. If I were you I would also checkout retropi.org. The people there deal with all kinds of emulation as retro pi itself has common emulators built in. Github has plans for 3d printed cases as you expressed interest in having one of them. They even have NES style cases for the retro look. There are online 3d print services available. I have a friend who has built a arcade machine and apparently it is not rocket science. There is plenty of help online just look at tutorials of how to do stuff.

This is a great resource, and I look forward to using it. Even though I wasn't entirely on board with using RetroPie at first, it seems like it would be extremely useful in my project. Thanks!