Pi in a Super Famicom Build

[edmaul69]

@obsidianspider i like the black a lot. As far as adding something to the left, what about the nintendo seal of quality?

[obsidianspider]

@edmaul69 I actually put the Raspberry Pi logo where the Nintendo seal usually goes, but maybe I'll try moving things around a bit to see how that looks.

[obsidianspider]

In working on my scripts to get information displaying on my secondary TFT I found that the Adafruit libraries for displaying static images weren't meeting my needs for system information. The only way I could get it to update was to generate a new image and then repaint the entire screen. This was leading to a load of flickering and it was just untenable.

All of that took me back to my nemesis: framebuffer. I finally figured out how to initialize fb1 and to get things displaying on it with pygame and while I have a whole new set of things to learn, it seems better suited for displaying system stats as it can update only the parts of the screen that change, not the entire display every single time.

[obsidianspider]

I'm not artistic like some members of the forum, but I was thinking the black mockup of the cartridge label was just too plain. I took the splashscreen and used that as a background. What do you think? Black? Blue? Something entirely different? The Super Mario World image is a placeholder to show where the TFT will show through.

[backstander]

@obsidianspider

Seeing a picture on a webpage and actually having it applied to a cartridge can be two different things but looking at these pictures, I like the blue background one but I kind of have a feeling that the black background one might look better on a cart. I don't know if that helps.

[monstermadeofman]

@obsidianspider

I like the second design but I don't think the blue suits... As such I might have taken the liberty of knocking up something else that I felt looked a bit more in vouge. Hope you dont mind

[obsidianspider]

@monstermadeofman I like the gray, but with the cartridge almost the same color I'm not sure it'd give the look I'm after. I just ordered a bumper sticker from VistaPrint with the blue and black designs on it so I can check them out after being printed. Hopefully at least one looks decent and I didn't waste $8.

Yes, I know the blue one has the logo twice, but that whole section is going to be cut out for the screen and I wanted the blue background as big as possible.

[monstermadeofman]

@obsidianspider to be honest I did think that myself after posting it haha. I personally like the black. As much as the blue stands out, I just don't feel like it looks authentic. Hope they both come out good man :)

[obsidianspider]

@monstermadeofman From what I saw after looking at hundreds of cartridges online most PAL and US cartridges were black with a box of game art, but the Japanese cartridges had a lot of full label art. I figured since two labels would fit on the bumper sticker it was worth giving them a try. If anything I'm more concerned about print resolution for the small text looking crummy.

[obsidianspider]

I also got to learn a little bit about katakana. I was going to try to write "Retro Pie" in it
レトロ パイ
but I couldn't find a cool font, and I'm no good at "word art"

[monstermadeofman]

@obsidianspider

Hmmm there might be a way of doing it!

Mind if I look into it for you?

[obsidianspider]

@monstermadeofman Haha, sure. I already ordered the sticker though. Should be here in a few days, but have at it. Maybe I could use it for the startup screen or something.

[monstermadeofman]

@obsidianspider

Well that was my thought. Have you got a custom splashscreen for your start up?

[obsidianspider]

@monstermadeofman This was the tool I used to translate. It seemed to check out when I gave it "Super Famicom" so hopefully that text doesn't say "I love turnips" or something like that. :)

[obsidianspider]

@monstermadeofman I haven't messed with any of that right now. My TFT has a 320x240 image of the "blue" Retropie splashscreen and RetroPie itself is just the default carbon fiber one.

[obsidianspider]

It's really difficult to photograph that small screen and see anything else.

[monstermadeofman]

Ok that's cool dude. I'll have a crack at some stuff sometime next week as I'm away this weekend

[Rookervik]

@obsidianspider I got your katakana right here!

[obsidianspider]

@monstermadeofman Thanks for offering. No rush on anything. My friend is still working on the 3D printed back power panel as he just moved to a new house last weekend, so I'm not in a rush. I have some other parts on the way for another project that should keep me busy for a while. Photos to come after a few more bits arrive…

[obsidianspider]

@Rookervik Your "RetroPie X" splash screen introduced me to the term "katakana" and led me to hours of googling on the subject. I wish I were a fraction as talented as you when it comes to graphics stuff.