Pi Zero in a PSX Case: TV-Out

2020-03-05


Remember the broken PS1 that now serves as PSXSERIAL "adapter" of sorts? Well, it's a SCPH-1002, which means it also has RCA (Cinch) connectors for left/right audio and composite video. Let's utilize those! The idea is to put a Raspberry Pi Zero into the PSX case and use the existing connectors for connections to the outside world.

Let's start out with the underside of the PSX mainboard and the two solder joints of the composite connector:

Just like with the serial port in the last post, let's route those via the hole to the upper side of the board so that it is easy to connect to from the upper side:

Compared to the very first Raspberry Pi, the Pi Zero doesn't have a built-in composite connector, but it does have unpopulated holes labeled "TV", where on can just solder a 2-pin PIN header (one could solder the wires directly, but this way it's more modular and I can use the Pi Zero for something else if needed):

And finally, it's done and we can test it with a TV that supports composite in via a SCART connector:

As you see, this has booted into the RetroPie distribution, so any emulators that run fine on a Pi Zero should work fine with this setup.

Thomas Perl · 2020-03-05