Need to make two buttons work. (Preliminary research for Retro Pi 3 Model B project)
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Hi! I've been doing some research on the raspberry Pi, so that I can install one in a Super Famicom shell that I have on hand and use it for games.
I'm still waiting for the board to arrive. I have encountered a possible problem in something I would like to do with it.
In the Super Famicom shell, I have places two micro switches at Eject, and Reset. The buttons confirmed to be functioning as they should.
I would like to use these buttons in place of the hotkey commands to return to the game menu, and to reset the currently running game.I have found that the GPIO pins might be used for this purpose, however doing google searches has turned up a mass of inconsistent data.
So, after searching for better part of a month, I have finally decided to ask: How can I achieve this? or if possible, is there something pre-configured that I can just install to make this happen? -
Sorry for the bump, but:
Am I to understand that what I am trying to achieve is not possible? -
@nite-shadow It can work like you want. You can use GPIO . . . one pin for each button, and the other terminals for each button go to a common ground pin. Then, you load up software like Adafruit's Retrogame or mholgatem's GPIOneer or others which basically run a keyboard driver that takes GPIO inputs and translates them into keypresses.
THEN, you go into RetroArch or a given emulator config and map the keys you are using to the desired function.
I am doing something similar on my system, only instead of exit/reset, I have my buttons increasing or decreasing volume.
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That sounds pretty simple actually. Anything special I need to know about making those work?
There is also a concern regarding the GPIO layout on my Pi. I have found several different pinout diagram regarding it, and even a few reports of disastrous results from incorrectly connecting something, due to following an incorrect pinout diagram. What would be the correct one for the unit I'm getting?
(Really, did I actually call it a retro pi?, I meant Raspberry Pi 3 Model B) -
@nite-shadow Good questions. Everyone has their own design ideas, and it may help to check here about using Retrogame for mapping the keys and connecting to GPIO and checking out their own support forum. It looks like they encourage questions about the software and about your project ideas, so maybe they have good answers. I happen to use GPIOneer for my volume buttons, and the developer mholgatem is very nice and responsive to questions as well.
Finally, you might want to check this third option called mkarcade which includes documentation about the pins used—handy details that are worth looking into no matter what software option you choose.
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Excellent!
That seems to cover about everything. I just need to wait for my board to arrive and I can get started.
Thank you so much Caver01! -
@nite-shadow No prob. Hey, take some pictures as you go and share your build project in the other section. Folks love to see what everyone is building.
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Sure thing!
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