Build a classic gaming system for free
Bring together your retired tech, load up Android and get home classic gaming without spending a cent.
The Mini Classic NES will bring back fond memories of classic gaming consoles, lounge-room gaming and diving behind your CRT telly, mucking around with composite-video cables. But you don’t need an MCN to enjoy retro gaming — recycle your leftover tech and, with the right parts, you can build a retro gaming system for nothing.
HARDWARE
Boil it down and the MCN is just an SBC with proprietary USB controllers running a bunch of game ROMs on a custom Linux base. Most of us will have an old laptop lurking in a cupboard somewhere suitable for recycling as a classic gaming machine. We’ve used a 2010-era HP-Compaq Presario CQ42-136TU laptop — 1.9GHz dual-core Celeron T3100 CPU with integrated GPU and 2GB of RAM. I replaced the hard drive with an old 64GB OCZ Vertex SSD a while ago, but what makes the CQ42 ideal for this is its HDMI output and three USB ports. Essentially, we’re turning the laptop into a console.
SOFTWARE
We start by replacing the laptop’s Windows 7 OS with Android (swapping in the SSD allowed me to store the original Windows drive for later use, always a good idea). The Android-x86 project ( android-x86.org) began as an effort to port Android to Intel/x86 architecture. It succeeded and has siMCN joined with Jide Technology to launch Remix OS. However, the Android-x86 open-source effort still remains, with three Android images available for x86 PCs — KitKat/Android 4.4, Lollipop/5.1 and Marshmallow/6.0.
GAMES
Android’s lure is the mountain of free retro and reborn classic games available — side-scrollers, arcade games, platformers... You’ll probably run out of steam before you run out of games, but to do it right, you need games with gamepad support. If you have a USB game controller — PS3, Xbox 360 or even a generic PC controller — there’s a list of Google Play games at Android Gamepad Games ( tinyurl.com/apc437-games). Google Play has plenty of retro remakes, from MCN classics Pac-man and Mario to arcade games like OpenTyrian.
Not all of them are controller-ready and some force-switch the screen to a ‘sideways-portrait’ mode, making them unsuitable. However, you should still find enough games to keep you interested.
INSTALLING ANDROID
Grab an Android 4.4, 5.1 or 6.0 ISO image from the OSDN page ( tinyurl.com/ apc437-osdn). You also need UNetbootin ( unetbootin.github.io) and a 2GB or larger USB flash drive. This method wipes the old laptop’s internal drive and the USB flash drive, so back up everything first. Plug the USB flash drive into your PC, format the flash drive, then launch UNetbootin and press the browse ‘...’ button on the far right of the ‘Diskimage’ radiobutton. Select the Android ISO image you downloaded, ensure your USB flash drive letter is selected and press the OK button to flash. When completed, plug the flash drive into your old laptop and boot from it. Android runs directly from the flash drive, but ideally, you should install it onto the laptop’s hard drive/SSD. Select ‘Install’ from the boot menu and follow the prompts (format to ‘Ext3’ and install GRUB, not the GPT version).
For this new Android device, we suggest creating yourself a new Google account. Plug the laptop’s HDMI output into your telly before you boot, plug your controller into the laptop’s USB port, install some games from Google Play and you’re away.