Using calipers, I measured each part and came up with a case idea. Rather than fully enclose everything, some elements (the Perma-Proto board holding the controls, plus the Raspberry Pi Zero board itself) would themselves become elements of the structure.

I chose to do this in 1/16" laser-cut acrylic, because when you have a laser cutter you stupidly think everything’s a job for laser-cut acrylic. To further economize on space, there would be no fasteners, everything would be glued.

This was a poor choice and please don’t ask for the file. If I woke up and it was Saturday again, Groundhog Day-style, 3D printing would have been much better. Takes more time to design up front, but way less time fighting with glue and wobbly bits.

Perma-Proto boards are the bee’s knees! They can be cut to size on a scroll saw, then the edges cleaned up and trimmed to a more precise size on a disc sander.

Two pins on the 5-way navigation switch do not lie on the regular 0.1" grid. It was necessary to drill extra holes between others and make some solder bridges.

Ignore the power bus lines here; some traces were cut on the back to achieve the necessary continuity (or not) to make each button work. This was tested with a multimeter and adjusted before further assembly.

As a “farting around” project, the wiring, like the case design, wasn’t carefully plotted beforehand. All the wires were initially cut to a uniform 4" length and one end soldered to components, which were then moved around and each wire trimmed to a suitable length with a few millimeters slack, plus some extra to strip and tin.

Making matters more challenging was the discovery that I only had two colors of 26-gauge silicone-coated stranded wire on-hand. That’s no help…26 gauge is too fat for this cramped space, and more colors really do help for keeping track of things, and better match the photos to the wiring diagram. So I made do with some inferior 28-gauge non-silicone wire, using the thicker stuff for just the few power-related connections. The process required patience, tweezers and a good soldering iron.

If you’ve never used silicone-coated stranded wire before, I can’t recommend it highly enough! Super flexy. Even within Adafruit it’s developed something of a cult following. “Hey, have you tried this silicone wire?” “Eh, what’s the big deal? It’s just wire with…HOLY CRAP THIS STUFF IS MAGICAL!”

Before enclosing everything, a dry run is imperative! I’d already set up the software (explained on the next page) on a micro SD card. Found in testing that I’d botched a few wires…mixed up the controls, and had the marquee LED + on a GPIO pin instead of +3.3V. Test, adjust and repeat as needed.

Notice the protective plastic cover is still on the OLED. This helps keep solder flux spatter and glue from messing up this most expensive component. It comes off later as the very last step.

Huh! It appears I didn’t get any photos of the case-gluing process. Well I can assure you it was a bad path and mostly consisted of a lot of swearing, do-overs, probably some crying, and having to hold pieces seemingly forever while the “five minute” epoxy cured (maybe it’s five minutes on like Venus or something), half of it on my fingers and probably rendering me sterile. Some kind of press-fit 3D-printed caselet would’ve been so much easier.

You’ll see there’s a tiny speaker wedged in there. By sheer dumb chance, it happened to align with a blank spot on the Pi board (near the logo) where an edge could be glued down without fear of shorting components or traces on the board.

The audio amp is glued to the “wall” of the case, at an angle. With all those wires fighting for space, the amplifier board protruded slightly from the bottom. Since there are no active electrical traces around the mounting holes, I just clipped the corner off the board.

The glue job is rough and pieces are badly aligned, but eventually it all stuck and stands on its own! A second pass with epoxy over the inside seams hopefully makes it strong enough for casual play.

Notice the screen was installed “vertically.” Could’ve gone either way, but there are a couple reasons I chose this orientation:

1. Some of the most iconic games of the 1980s used vertically-mounted monitors. Following suit emphasizes the fact that these are the real deal, not cheap console ports designed for regular “horizontal” screens.
2. The OLED breakout board is narrower on this axis, roughly matching the Raspberry Pi. Placing the screen the “wide” way would have required a larger case, working against the sheer tiny-ness goal.