tiefpunkt / arduinoretrogames

Custom PCB for Rob Cai's Arduino VGA games

Arduino Retro Gameconsole

Rob Cai published two Instructables in which he used an Arduino to emulate some old-school videogames. I didn’t want to build the project on protoboard, so I designed these PCBs for that.

Hardware

The hardware of the retro videogame console is made up of a mainboard, and two different controller types.

The Mainboard

The mainboard runs the video games, and connect to the VGA monitor, one or two controllers, and to power. It's made up of an Arduino Pro Mini, a few resistors, some more connectors, and possibly a buzzer for audio.

Parts

Part Number	Type
R1	Resistor 470Ω
R2	Resistor 470Ω
R3	Resistor 68Ω
R4	Resistor 68Ω
P1	Jumper 2x3 for color setting (see below)
P2	Jumper 2x3 for color setting (see below)

Colors

The arduino outputs two color signals, and you can choose, which colors those should represent on the monitor. To do that, you have the two color jumpers in the bottom right corner of the board. You can check out our recommendations in the table below.

Game	Color1	Jumper Setting for Color 1	Color 2	Jumper Setting for Color 2
Tetris	???	: : [:]	???	: [:] :

The Controllers

Depending on the game you want to play, two different types of controllers are necessary. One has one button and one knob (potentiometer), the other one simply 4 buttons. Both are based on the same PCB, just with different parts put in place

Part number	Description	Necessary for Button+Knob controller	Necessary for 4 buttons controller
D1	5mm LED	(x)	(x)
J1	RJ12 connector	x	x
R1	Resistor 150Ω	(x)	(x)
R2	Resistor 1kΩ	-	x
R3	Resistor 1kΩ	-	x
R4	Resistor 1kΩ	-	x
R5	Resistor 1kΩ	x	x
RV2	Potentiometer 10kΩ	x	-
RV4	Potentiometer 10kΩ	-	-
SW1	Pushbutton	-	x
SW2	Pushbutton	-	x
SW3	Pushbutton	-	x
SW4	Pushbutton	x	x

R1 and D1 are for an optional LED which lights up when the controller is connected to the mainboard.

Software

The games for the Arduino Retro Videogame Console are made by Rob Cai, and can be found on Instructables

• Pong, Breakout, Bomber, Etch-a-Sketch in one
• Pong

Resources

• Arduino Lib

License

Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 Unported License (CC BY-SA 4.0)