Handheld PicoNES?

[DynaMight1124]

Hi

Not sure if this is a whacky idea or not? If its something you're totally not into then its fine, I'm good either way but what about a handheld version? The usual Pico will be fine, but would need some additional libraries.

I saw you're implementing i2c audio which is what kinda gave me the idea as it would probably need that for audio. The actual number of IO required would be fairly similar, you'd need 8 for basic controls but theres already 6 for the 2 NES ports so only an additional 2. The 8 for the HDMI would be replaced by (usually) about 6 for the LCD, then a few more for i2c audio. Also would need a charge circuit but these are very cheap and can be totally independent.

Library wise, it would need some display drivers, ideally the two common types ST7789 & ILI9341 and (I assume) additional controller support for GPIO inputs.

I can knock up a breadboard style PCB if needed to allows you to develop, something that uses easy to get Aliexpress throughhole components if you wanted.

Wasnt sure if you were sat around thinking of ideas for the PicoNES project or not :)

Thanks

[fhoedemakers]

Hi there,

Great idea, but i cannot make time for it right now. I hope you don't mind.

John from Adafruit (The designer of the first PCB) asked me to port the emulator to a new board they are bringing out soon. This is the reason i implemented I2S audio (not I2C).
I implemented this for the Pimorini Pico DV Demo base which is one of the supported boards and has a DAC and audio out jack. It works quite well, though samples get dropped from time to time. The DAC is different than on Adafruit board, but i hope it can be done.
I also need to figure out ho to access a scondary USB port using PIO usb on that board.
All of this takes a lot of my free time. (also started to play Doom the Dark Age :-) which also got me a little bit hooked )

As you might know, there are already some handhelds available, for one of these i already ported the emulator. Sound is not good however due to the internal piezo speaker. There is an option to solder another speaker in the device.

For the handheld, you need to find a display which has a pinout for detecting vsync. This is necessary for pacing the emulator at 60fps. The DAC could be an PCM5100A DAC for line out audio over I2S (datasheet)

BTW, I ordered 5 PCB's with your design, I'll receive them today. Also need some time to build on of these. ;-) Hope i can pull it off using my shaky soldering hands.

Again, hope you don't mind. Maybe in the near future. You are a great contributor to this project which i appreciate.

Frank

[DynaMight1124]

Hi Frank

Thats totally fine, theres no problems here, just had a idea and thought I'd chuck it out there. It would likely be a pretty big project software wise! There would probably be some handy resources out there, the Murmulator guys support a few screens & audio combinations so could be a helping hand if you do want to look at it at some stage.

I did see the PicoSystem previously, I guess it would be ultimately similar to that but could be portrait and have a bigger screen.

Good luck with the soldering, it can be pretty tricky!

Thanks