RetroStart: kid-friendly gaming UX for raspberry pi 500s

retrostart.sh

#!/bin/bash

# Copyright 2025 Sam Halliday
# License BSD-3

# This allows for a kid-friendly UX to a Raspberry Pi 500 whereby you plug in a
# colour coded USB thumbdrive to start a specific game. If no drive is present
# it powers off, and a parent drive can be used to eenter the desktop.
# I bought the cheapest colour coded drives I could find at
# https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B074DWKG7Q but be aware that they have an
# embedded LED.
#
# It is just looking to see if a pre-defined file exists, it isn't doing
# arbitrary code execution, so it is safe in that sense.
#
# The examples below use amiberry, scummvm, and various console emulators. It
# can be extended to support any app. There is a momentary flash of the desktop
# and it's possible to exit the emulators and get a terminal so don't consider
# this to have kiosk levels of security... it's just to simplify
# starting up games for kids who don't know how to read or use a desktop.
#
# To automatically start, put this file into the home directory and make
# it executable, then create an entry in ~/.config/autostart/retrostart.desktop
# containing
#
# [Desktop Entry]
# Type=Application
# Name=RetroStart
# Exec=/home/pi/retrostart.sh
#
# ScummVM (and others) are available through the regular Raspberry Pi OS channels.
# Amiberry is available at https://github.com/BlitterStudio/amiberry/releases/
# SNES9X must be compiled from https://github.com/snes9xgit/snes9x
#
# Many titles and ROMS are available on https://archive.org/
#
# MAME is a PITA to set up, best avoid using the UI at all and just edit the
# .mame/mame.cfg, e.g. the following
#   autoframeskip             1
#   frameskip                 1
#   unevenstretch             0
#   filter                    0
# plus manually editing the cfg files to bind a button to insert coins etc.
# I found it was still pretty laggy even on an rpi5 for early 1990s games.
# Games must go into mame/roms, and match the expected set of the emulator. Pack 
# 0.251 seems to be corrupted but the next version seems ok, even though our binary says it is 0.251
# https://archive.org/download/mame-0.260-roms-non-merged/MAME%200.260%20ROMs%20%28non-merged%29/MAME%200.260%20ROMs%20%28non-merged%29/
#
# Amiga games can be synced from whdload with
#
# lftp -u ftp,any ftp2.grandis.nu <<EOF
# set ftp:ssl-allow no
# set ssl:verify-certificate no
# cd "Retroplay WHDLoad Packs/Commodore_Amiga_-_WHDLoad_-_Games"
# mirror --verbose --only-missing --no-perms --target-directory=. .
# bye
# EOF
#

# clean up old mount points
sudo rmdir /media/pi/*  2&>/dev/null

#echo "RETROSTART"
# assumes we're using a udisksctl managed desktop environment
for dev in /dev/sd?* ; do
    [ -b $dev ] || continue
    udisksctl mount -b $dev 2>/dev/null
done

cd $HOME

# set up the snes emulator to use multitap
if [ $(lsusb | grep -c gamepad) -ge 3 ] ; then
    echo "enabling multitap"
    sed -i 's/ControllerPort1   = joypad/ControllerPort1   = multitap/' .config/snes9x/snes9x.conf
else
    echo "disabling multitap"
    sed -i 's/ControllerPort1   = multitap/ControllerPort1   = joypad/' .config/snes9x/snes9x.conf
fi

# cd ~/.local/share/vice
# mv c64 C64
# cd C64
# for f in characters.* ; do mv $f -v ${f/characters./chargen-} ; done
# for f in basic.* ; do mv $f -v ${f/basic./basic-} ; done
# for f in kernal.* ; do mv $f -v ${f/kernal./kernal-} ; done

# give a moment for drives to mount
sleep 1

# TODO shout down if the hdmi isn't connected to a live tv
# otherwise the audio doesn't work when we turn it on.

# TODO carousel GUI mode to select games

for mount in /media/pi/*; do
    [ -d "$mount" ] || continue
#    echo "  RETROSTART checking $mount"

    if [ -e "$mount/admin" ]; then
        exit 0
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/swos" ]; then
        amiberry --autoload Amiberry/lha/S/SensibleWorldOfSoccer_v2.3_0840.lha
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/swos9596" ]; then
        amiberry --autoload Amiberry/lha/S/SensibleWorldOfSoccer9596_v2.3_1755.lha
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/swos9697" ]; then
        amiberry --autoload Amiberry/lha/S/SensibleWorldOfSoccer9697_v2.3_0842.lha
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/swos9798" ]; then
        amiberry --autoload Amiberry/lha/S/SensibleWorldOfSoccer9798_v2.3.lha
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/swos2425" ]; then
        amiberry --autoload Amiberry/lha/S/SensibleWorldOfSoccer2425_v2.3.lha
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/lemmings" ]; then
        amiberry --autoload Amiberry/lha/L/Lemmings_v1.5_Files_2089.lha
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/cannonfodder" ]; then
        amiberry --autoload Amiberry/lha/C/CannonFodder_v2.0_0860.lha
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/sf2t" ]; then
        snes9x-gtk "SNES/Street Fighter II Turbo - Hyper Fighting (U) [!].smc"
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/bomberman" ]; then
        snes9x-gtk "SNES/Super Bomberman (U).smc"
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/bomberman2" ]; then
        snes9x-gtk 'SNES/Super Bomberman 2 (U) [!].smc'
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/marioworld" ]; then
        snes9x-gtk 'SNES/Super Mario World (U) [!].smc'
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/zelda" ]; then
        snes9x-gtk 'SNES/Legend of Zelda, The - A Link to the Past (U) [!].smc'
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/pilotwings" ]; then
        snes9x-gtk "SNES/Pilotwings (U) [!].smc"
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/shadowrun_snes" ]; then
        snes9x-gtk "SNES/Shadowrun (U) [!].smc"
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/tmnt4" ]; then
        snes9x-gtk "SNES/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles IV - Turtles in Time (U) [!].smc"
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/supermario1" ]; then
        nestopia -f "NES/Europe/Super Mario Bros. (E) (V1.1) [!].nes"
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/wwfwfest" ]; then
        mame wwfwfest
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/pacman" ]; then
        mame pacman
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/alexkidd" ]; then
        mednafen "mastersystem/Alex Kidd in Miracle World (USA, Europe, Brazil) (Rev 1).sms"
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/shadowrun_sega" ]; then
        mednafen "megadrive/Shadowrun (USA).md"
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/streetsrage2" ]; then
        mednafen "megadrive/Streets of Rage 2 (USA).md"
    fi

    if [ -e "$mount/monkey" ]; then
        cd SCUMM
        scummvm monkey
    fi
done

/usr/sbin/poweroff