This Tiny TV Contains All of the Retro Games
Redditor mr_deelee designed and built this retro gaming system that looks like a miniature Toshiba BlackStripe CRT TV from the 1970s.
You should consider yourself lucky to be living in the year 2023, because modern emulation gives you access to literally thousands of retro games. With less than $50 worth of hardware, you can play just about every video game released before 1996 or so. The Sinclair ZX Spectrum catalog alone contains almost 2,000 games — and most Americans never got access to that computer, so they’re all fresh experiences. To put that experience into the most adorable possible package, Redditor mr_deelee designed this tiny TV with a built-in Raspberry Pi for retro gaming.
Raspberry Pi models and other single-board computers make it very easy and affordable to create a dedicated retro gaming system. The RetroPie Linux-based operating system is a popular choice for emulation, because it includes all of the most popular consoles and computers (and supports many of the lesser known systems with a tiny bit of work). All you have to do is download game ROMs, drop them into the appropriate folders, connect a USB or wireless gamepad, and start playing. You can do that without any enclosure at all (just connect the Raspberry Pi to your TV via HDMI), but mr_deelee’s custom TV enclosure is so much cooler.
Our intrepid hero, mr_deelee, designed the enclosure to look like a Toshiba BlackStripe CRT TV from the 1970s. While few people would describe it as beautiful, that TV definitely evokes nostalgia for those of us of a certain age. It fits in perfectly with the era of video games mr_deelee will play on this system, since a lot of people had their NES consoles connected to TVs just like it.
That enclosure is 3D-printable (files on Printables) and contains a Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. The display is a 3.5” MPI3508 LCD connected via HDMI. The only other parts required are a power supply, right-angle USB adapter, SD card, and a handful of screws. mr_deelee connected a wireless SNES-style gamepad to the Raspberry Pi, but anyone replicating this project can use whatever wireless gamepad they’re most comfortable with.
3.5” is pretty small for a gaming, but the display has enough resolution to easily exceed that of most of the emulated consoles. And, of course, the charm is unparalleled.