Who doesn’t dream of having their own retro gaming machine? Sure, there are plenty of emulation options out there, but I wanted something permanent, something I could leave on the TV stand, power on, and play without dragging out my laptop every time.

After scouring the web, I stumbled onto a forum discussing something called a Raspberry Pi. At first, I almost ignored it, assuming it had nothing to do with emulation. Thankfully, curiosity got the better of me and I’m glad it did. A few minutes of reading, and I was blown away by how affordable these tiny single-board computers were. That was the good news.

The bad news?

Where could I even get one?

The global chip shortage caused by the Covid-19 pandemic made Raspberry Pis surprisingly hard to find. Still determined, I kept searching until I finally got lucky and found a Raspberry Pi 3A+ in stock at PiShop.US. It wasn’t the most powerful model, but given the shortage, it was the only option available. After shipping, what would normally cost about $25 at my local Micro Center, came out to around $35.

That was fine with me at the time since I couldn’t find one anywhere else and I ordered it right away. A few weeks later, it arrived in the mail.

Now came the fun part: setting up RetroPie.

Following the official RetroPie guide, I had the system up and running in no time. My Raspberry Pi 3A+ refused to connect to Wi-Fi, so I ended up transferring the rom over with a USB flashdrive.

I did run into an issue where my TV was not picking up the HDMI signal from the Pi, so I had to SSH into the Pi and uncomment hdmi_force_hotplug=1. After that it booted up like normal on my TV.

After configuring my controls, the very first game I launched was Street Fighter Alpha 2. The second that familiar intro music kicked in, I was transported straight back to my childhood. Sitting there with the controller in hand, pulling off Hadoukens again after all these years, it felt like pure magic. Now my little Pi lives on the TV stand, always ready to whisk me back in time whenever the nostalgia hits.

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Materials:

Item	Details	Price (approx.)
TV/Monitor	Used my main TV (saved on screen & speakers)	$0
Keyboard & Mouse	Reused existing set	$0
Necessary Cables	Power cable + HDMI cable (reusing existing cables)	$0
Gaming Controller	Generic USB SNES controller	~$10
Raspberry Pi 3A+	Base board	~$35 after shipping
Micro SD Card	32GB card	~$12
USB Stick	Generic 32GB flash drive	<~$8
Total (approx.)		~$65