Raspberry Pi Official Magazine #133

Retro computing enables us to experience a time when computers were more straightforward and more challenging. The modern technology stack is so detailed that it’s hard to fully comprehend, whereas older computers are much easier to figure out. And the games were terrific. Nostalgia is powerful stuff, and the technical achievement of 1980s games, combined with the level of challenge, is incredible. Classic computing is a huge hobby. And our resident retro expert, KG Orphanides, has written an Emulate Everything feature (page 36). It’s packed with information on all the different retro options, the legal status of the various systems, and where to get your retro games. Build a great system and happy gaming. EDITOR magpi.cc…

MAKER hackaday.io/yutasuito Warning! Mower safety Fast-spinning lawnmower blades are very dangerous and can also eject debris at high speed. magpi.cc/mowersafety Living in a mountainous region of Japan has proved inspiring for maker Yuta Suito. The local area has many rice terraces but, as he explains, “With the ageing of the farmers, this beautiful landscape will disappear in about ten years. Many farmers say that the hardest part of maintaining the terraced fields is weeding.” Determined to try and help, Yuta wanted to “solve this problem by providing mobility (with no need to bury boundary wires underground) and intuitive operation (in reality, many elderly people cannot use smartphones or computers).” The result is the lightweight, solar-powered Roktrack pylon-guided mower, and it’s perfect for rough terrain. Prompted by a road construction site,…

01 Yuta’s casing needed to be strong to weather the terrain, so aluminium sheet metal was chosen. He then installed motors, fans, and switches. 02 Yuta converted Raspberry Pi OS on his 3A+ to read-only. He also allocated it more memory so that it could handle the task (magpi.cc/roktrackreadonly). The mowing program is automatically started by systemd, and starts mowing on its own. 03 Yuta attached solar panels to the top of the fully assembled robot with double-sided tape. The battery can be charged from the panels. Under solar power, Roktrack can operate for up to an hour a day, if the weather is good.…

MAKER magpi.cc/pplib Although there are many handheld retro game consoles based around Raspberry Pi devices, we still want to play with more. They help to keep the memories of old machines and titles alive, while providing the perfect opportunity to dive into a project and learn more about what is going on under-the-hood. It’s this desire to understand that has driven Daniel Kammer to create Pico Held, a beautiful, open-source handheld with a Raspberry Pi Pico board at its heart. “There is so much you can learn from creating DIY projects,” he says. “By making it open-source, it also gives others the opportunities to learn – maybe they’ll help to improve Pico Held in the future.” Hold fire Before getting down to work, Daniel came up with some goals. “I…

MAKER mattg.co.uk NASA’s Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) is a satellite that sits between the Earth and the sun, where it is ideally placed for solar research, and provides early warnings of solar winds (that can affect power grids and communication systems). DSCOVR also hosts a camera called EPIC (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera) which is positioned so it can always see the sunlit side of Earth. “EPIC takes beautiful photos of the planet every day, and I wanted a way of displaying the latest photos in my home,” explains renowned YouTuber MattGrayYES. Since NASA allows you to access their EPIC photos from your code using their Blue Marble API (magpi.cc/epicapi), it was clearly feasible. When Matt saw the 2.1-inch HyperPixel Round Touch Display in the Pimoroni shop (magpi.cc/hyperpixelround), he decided…

01 If you have access to a 3D printer, you can download a template from this link: magpi.cc/printminion. Once printed, insert the HyperPixel display. 02 Next, attach Raspberry Pi Zero W to the screen, sandwiching the case between the two. Insert an SD card preloaded with Raspberry Pi OS and preconfigured to automatically connect to a wireless network. 03 Power on and follow the coding instructions Matt provides on his GitHub page for pulling in photos from the Blue Marble API: magpi.cc/epicgit. Enjoy the photo slide show!…