richardpilbery / arcade-pico

DIY Makecode Arcade console with Rp2040 Pico

Arcade-Pico

DIY Makecode Arcade board with RP2040 Pico

Here is what I got after playing Pico with Arcade for a few days. Hope this helped.

Good news:

• work with both Pico & PicoW
• works well with screen(ST7735 160x128) & btn & speaker
• bootloader in rom, very very safe
• UF2 format supported by bootloader naturally !!! Not require compile bootloader anymore! 😛
• Pico is faster, and very cheap about 1.5~4$
• can work with 9341(320x240) in spi mode (with a little laggy)

Bad news: (my test result)

• CFG_PIN_LED can’t sign to on-board led on PicoW, cause it not be driven by any GPIO directly.
• botton pins need pull-up for steady
• no parallel solution yet, can’t setup parallel screen (bigger screen eg: 9341 )
• WebApp don’t support, device appeared but panic(050) when download directly.
• enter MSD mode first every time to upload game ( holding bootsel btn and re-plug usb cable of Pico)
• can’t transfer serial msg via console.log()
• pin.analogRead() always return 0, whatever the pin config I set.

How to do:

• update config (once):
  • Download my configuration v01:
    • 1.8" st7735 https://github.com/AqeeAqee/Arcade-Pico/blob/main/Arcade-Rp2040Pico_Aqee_v01.uf2 or
    • 2.8/3.2" 9341spi: https://github.com/AqeeAqee/Arcade-Pico/blob/main/Arcade-Rp2040Pico_9341spi_Aqee_v01.uf2
  • holding bootsel btn and re-plug Pico into usb port of computer.
  • Drag&drop this config file into Pico drive.
• download game:
  • In arcade, choose hardware of R2 (need enabled experience hardwares first in About)
  • Before ready to download game, again, holding bootsel btn and re-plug Pico into usb port of computer.
  • Click download in Arcade and save file in Pico drive.
• Done, have fun!

Pins connection in this version:

Buttons:s
pin  6 : MENU
pin 10 : LEFT
pin 11 : RIGHT
pin 12 : UP
pin 13 : DOWN
pin 14 : A
pin 15 : B

Screen - ST7735
pin 16 : MISO (optional)
pin 17 : CS (or directly to GND)
pin 18 : SCK
pin 19 : MOSI
pin 20 : DC
pin 21 : RST
pin 22 : BL (or directly to 3v3)

speaker 
pin 7 (and a GND)

Other settings(GPIOs, I2C, SPI, etc) will be added later, I will share here also when updated.

Further more:

Go https://microsoft.github.io/uf2/patcher/ , to add or edit settings for your board.