Retro video games and old game consoles have come back to life with the Hardware Libre, especially with Raspberry Pi. I recently came across a project Hardware Libre that gives another twist to this world and creates an arcade machine with Raspberry Pi and 3D printing.
The project is totally free and for little money we can have a fully functional arcade machine and the same as the old machines that we found in arcade or bars. We even have the slot to insert the coin.
The components to create this arcade machine are very few and cheap, so any user can build a similar machine. Now, we will need a 3D printer to do everything since most of the pieces are printed. Along with the frame and controls that are printed, we will need a Raspberry Pi board, a 7-inch screen, a battery and several cables that will help us connect the controls created with the Raspberry Pi board.
The coin slot is also present in this arcade machine
As main software, the project uses RetroPie, an increasingly famous software because it is not only an operating system to use but it also has a great interface that adapts to the world of video consoles, just like the software of the latest Playstation or Xbox.
Luckily (since they are more and more suspicious of making their projects public) this arcade machine has all the public and released documentation that we can find in this site. So not only can anyone alter the project but also we can build our own arcade machine.
The draft Christopher Tan (the author of the project) is fully adapted to the end user, that is, after creating it we can use it and spend hours and hours playing, unlike other arcade machine projects that are uncomfortable to play.