RP2040 CM4 RetroPie Docking Station

StonedEdge · 6 Apr 2023, 00:44

Hi all,

Sharing the current progress of my CM4 docking station that connects to my custom built handheld. It has an SSD1351 driven OLED display controller inside and the Pico receives information over USB from the CM4.

Current features I have working include a custom splashscreen on boot, as well as showing the user statistics about the console like memory usage, fan temperature and more. The user can toggle through these modes by pushing the button on the side of the dock.

I have plans to use an old script from langest called RetroStats to display things like total game times played per game and showing top 3 games by duration, etc. Code base is written in C and Python and open source. I’d be open to new features and improvements as always! Would be great to see this integrated into custom mini arcade cabinets or similar.

https://github.com/StonedEdge/Retro-Lite-CM4-Dock

StonedEdge · 19 Apr 2023, 05:45

Quick video of it working in action - still a few tweaks/bugs to iron out. One major bug is that the image is being shifted or "sliced" at the moment at this specific point. Not sure if there's any hardware buffs on this forum but feel free to have a look at the code in the main link to try and help me debug if you wish.

windg · 19 Apr 2023, 06:31

Congratulation, very nice project!

StonedEdge · 16 May 2023, 05:24

@windg

Thanks! I've made some more changes to the code now that shut the OLED off after some time of inactivity and can be woken with the button press.

A few things left but I hope someone could use it in a mini arcade system or something of the sort. I'll make a final post here when it's completed.

StonedEdge · 15 Jun 2023, 06:42

Hi all,

I managed to make some significant progress in the last few weeks on the docking station. I was having a few bugs here and there but now I finally have a first beta version available to the public I'm willing to share. There's still a few things left to do but here is a video of it working.

I've uploaded the .uf2 file for those who'd like to have an attempt getting it to work.
You'll need an SSD1351 display as well as a Raspberry Pi Pico.

mitu · 15 Jun 2023, 06:48

Looks really nice ! Now do a video with the description text in Japanese :).

StonedEdge · 15 Jun 2023, 06:52

@mitu

That would be great! I don't know how I can scrape for Japanese descriptions since I am pre-scraping all of the metadata using Skyscraper. Plus, fitting the entire Kanji library on a Pico sounds... fun... would be cool though lol

mitu · 15 Jun 2023, 07:10

@StonedEdge use the old trick of storing the characters in the Font rom, like old Japanese computers did (MSX/NEC PC88/NEC PC98/Sharp X68000). Of course, the display may not have the resolution, but it would be a neat trick.