In the earliest of the 90s, before Sega and Nintendo were best buddies, they went head to head in the handheld console market. Sega released their Game Gear, which had a ton of very interesting features, and was "technologically superior" to it's rival, Nintendo's Game Boy. However, user experience won out, and Nintendo's Game Boy was crowned the victor of this battle. The Game Gear faded into obscurity, forever in our hearts marked as 'pretty cool.'

So, why the handheld gaming history lesson? Well, today we're going to be giving the Game Gear a second life as a Raspberry Pi-based handheld!

We're gonna be modifying the Game Gear's case to fit the screen, and the new internal components. The button PCBs will be reused from the original motherboard, and we'll be adding a couple of capacitive pad buttons for extra inputs! There's quite a bit of soldering involved, lots of heatshrinking, and cutting of plastics & PCBs. Make sure you have your safety goggles and facemask ready!!

First, Tools:

Then, Parts:

 

Here is the mounting hardware table. The smaller machine screws include one extra, just in case.

2x5mm Machine Screws

2x8mm Machine Screws

#2 Metric Nuts

~6.5mm Aluminum Standoffs

Standoff Compatible Screws

#3 Crush Washers

4

9

14

3

3

3

This guide was first published on Mar 02, 2015. It was last updated on Mar 02, 2015.

This page (Overview) was last updated on Feb 10, 2015.

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