Pi Tin Is a Well-Rounded Handheld Gaming Console That Fits in an Altoids Tin
Alley Cat Engineering is bringing back Altoids tin projects with the Pi Tin handheld game console.
The practice has become less common as 3D printing has gained prominence, but Altoids mint tins used to be very popular as enclosures for maker projects. For a few bucks, you could get a nice metal enclosure and a whole handful of powerful mints as a bonus. The standard Altoids tin size was ideal for small, pocketable devices and using those tins became something of a meme, akin to “but can it run Doom?” That’s why we’re excited to see the return of the Altoids tin with the Pi Tin console.
Pi Tin is a well-rounded handheld video game console built around a Raspberry Pi. And — you guessed it — the whole thing fits into an Altoids tin. There is also a version with a 3D-printed enclosure and that is actually the more attractive option for most people, but it is nice to know that it could fit in an Altoids tin.
This looks like a genuinely useful console with a strong focus on emulation. Alley Cat Engineering, which is a collaboration between jackw01 and soaporsalad, designed Pi Tin to use a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W. While that is less powerful than, say, a full-size Raspberry Pi 5, it has more than enough horsepower under the hood for SNES, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation, and Sega Genesis emulation (among many others). It can also run many new games, especially from the homebrew development community.
Because Alley Cat Engineering wanted this to be a real, playable console, they gave it Alps tactile switches. Those are the same switches used in the Game Boy Advance and Nintendo DSi, so they have a nice feel. The display is a 2.8” 320×240 TFT LCD and there is a speaker. With a 2000mAh lithium battery, it should be good for about 5 hours of gaming between charges. And the USB-C charging circuitry does support charging during use.
Building a Pi Tin requires two custom PCBs and they will take some skill with SMD soldering to populate. Alley Cat Engineering hopes to offer populated PCBs for sale in the future. Those can go in either the aforementioned Altoids tin or an entirely 3D-printed enclosure. We love the charm of the Altoids tin, but we agree with Alley Cat Engineering’s recommendation to 3D-print the enclosure. It looks nicer and is easier to build, while also being more comfortable to hold. And it has room for that larger 2000mAh battery.
You can install whatever software you want on a Pi Tin, but the obvious choice would be RetroPie. That will give you easy access to the most popular emulators available today. And yes, it will run Doom.
