Flying at 30000 feet and I am bored. My laptop won’t fit in my lap and my PSP Vita died. And I can’t surf. I can only type on my iPad. Whee…. Ryan is sitting next to me as we are heading to Las Vegas to the 2018 CES and he was reading and gave me something to do. He handed me one of the the latest in handheld projects, the Raspi-boy.
When handed to me, the first thing I said is, “This is a Super Nintendo controller.” Yeah, that’s for dang sure. The screen is a small but just the right size and the brains of the unit is a Pi Zero. The progress of modern technology is just incredible these days. Soon we will have digital watches that we can make phone calls with and control our music and….oh wait, we already do. But back to the Raspiboy. There are several units that I have played in the past that have more of either a PlayStation Vita or a Game Boy Advance feel to the controls. But the way that this was created was just sheer brilliance. It is the entire SNES controller to the exact feel and the screen is elevated enough that it doesn’t interfere with the controls.
On the left side is a volume control and head phone plug. In addition to that is an HDMI output and a mini HDMI for the power supply. When playing this, unfortunately, the audio is not that loud, so in order to get the full effect of the game, the best thing to do is wear head- phones. Check! I had a pair with me.
On the top of the unit is two USB ports that can be used to plug in external controllers so you can play Mortal Kombat with friends. The HDMI on the side helps with being able to export the image to a larger screen. But I will be honest, when playing the SNES and certain arcade games, I just couldn’t see it in my heart to set the controller down. The fact that it is a little slanted from the screen makes it even more enjoyable to play.
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