RetroPie Arcade
Nathan J
nathancharlesjonesTBD
The RetroPie Arcade is a casual, drop-in, gaming installation powered by one or two Raspberry Pis running RetroPie. Attendees can pick up original Super Nintendo controllers and jump straight into a curated selection of classic SNES games, no accounts, no downloads, no learning curve.
From a technical standpoint, the installation is intentionally conservative and robust. It requires no network connection and boots directly into the game selection screen. Controls are preconfigured, the game list is fixed, and a simple reset button combination ensures the system can always be returned to a known-good state. There are no user-modifiable settings and no risk of “getting stuck” in menus. The result is a hands-off, conference-friendly installation that feels playful and informal for attendees, while remaining stable, self-contained, and easy to support.
About the Maker
Nathan Jones is an embedded systems engineer and educator focused on understanding how low-level systems behave and how they fail. His work explores the boundary between hardware and firmware, including debugging, firmware development, and practical embedded security considerations. He is a frequent contributor to DigiKey and EmbeddedRelated, where he writes on topics including microcontroller architecture, debugging techniques, and practical embedded system design.
Nathan has spoken at the Embedded Online Conference, Hackaday Superconference, the Embedded Systems Summit, JawnCon, and Teardown. He lives in Tennessee with his wife, two children, and one black cat.