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October 2015 Retro Gaming Article


October 3, 2015 Retro Gaming Blog Post:

The Starforce Pi is an upcoming Raspberry Pi based tabletop arcade game with HDMI output

Here's a tabletop game with a twist. I've seen countless Raspberry Pi inspired Mame projects that range from small enclosures and bartop designs to full size arcade cabinets.

Starforce Pi What I like about the Starforce Pi is it's portability, micro-switch joystick, and the ability to connect to a TV or monitor. A rechargeable battery lets you to easily move the device and the HDMI output ports the video to a larger screen - like your TV. As I understand it, it's HDMI does not transfer the audio, but they will have another output for audio.

From what I've read, the Star Force Pi is a relatively new concept that is still in the development phase with updates coming as ideas are implemented. The designer is working to perfect the design while gauging interest in such a device.

The design itself mimics the open design of Raspberry Pi itself. Many of the components are designed to be replaced/upgraded with ease. While it runs Mame, you can imagine the vast number of arcade games you can run on such a system. I've seen other RP-based designs that use SD cards to supply RMS to the computer. The Starforce Pi seems to have an 10T Ethernet jack that allows one to download files.

Starforce Pi This project is to be crowd funded once they determine some of the base attributes. Keep an eye out for that and follow the progress online. There's a lot of good info and interaction on this AtariAge thread and you can follow this project on Facebook and Twitter.


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