I realized I hadn’t played with my Raspberry Pi in a while so the other day I decided to download RetroPie and give it a whirl. RetroPie is a game emulation system for the Pi that allows you to run old classic video games such as Super Mario and Castlevania. I grabbed the system image and within 10 minutes was up and running. I connected to my wifi and turned on ssh so I could upload datafiles.

The first issue was getting a game controller to work. Thankfully, the Nintendo Wii U Pro controller is bluetooth enabled. I had to run a few commands in the shell of the system to get it set up, but the instructions were clear and easy to follow. At that point all I needed to do is configure the controller buttons and everything just worked. I loaded up some games (not included) and had a fully fledged retro gaming machine in less than an hour.

It’s fun to have a toy like the Pi around to do cool stuff like this. Too often I forget how fun technology used to be, before it was all corporate IT. Getting my hands dirty with a Linux command line is a lot of fun, and it led to something fun that even my kids enjoy.