Pack an Old NES Cartridge With a Raspberry Pi and 2,400 Classic Games

Ah, who could forget the days of old-school Nintendo cartridges? While most of ours have either been thrown away or are lying around our parents’ house collecting dust, Zach from howchoo came up with a clever hack that enabled him to transform the obsolete unit into a retro gaming machine with 2,400 classics — for only $30. He accomplished this by gutting the NES cartridge and placing a Raspberry Pi Zero, a small USB hub, and a few adapters inside.

As you would expect, the project uses the RetroPie software package to boot up and play the games.

The basics of what I’m calling the Pi Cart (great name, eh?) involve a Raspberry Pi Zero, an old NES cartridge, a small USB hub and adapters of various sizes. Unless you want to get crafty or save a few bucks on adapters, no soldering is required.

Intrigued? You can check out Zach’s entire build here.