Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
We have seen some scenarios where the “Auto” setting does not work properly.
If you enable the Emulation Station on boot, you can reboot, and the system will boot
directly into the Emulation Station GUI. You can also launch this GUI manually by
running:
$ emulationstation
On its first run, Emulation Station will prompt you to configure your joystick. It uses
the joystick to navigate through the GUI interface (though it does not pass those joy-
stick settings to every emulator). You can choose from the emulated systems using
the left and right buttons on your joystick controller.
If you do not have ROMs installed for an emulated system, Emulation Station will not
display that system as a choice. To install ROMs for a system, put the files
in
/home/pi/RetroPie/roms/<systemname>/
. If your ROM files are compressed, you
might need to uncompress them before Emulation Station will recognize them.
Connect a DSLR
HACK 52
The official Raspberry Pi camera is tiny and mighty, but there are times
you'll want the control and interchangeable lenses of your DSLR. The Pi
can handle that, too.
Although the Raspberry Pi was designed for a camera (that didn't even exist until more
than a year after the Pi itself launched!), that camera doesn't have nearly the power
of your DSLR. We used one to create a portable photobooth (along with a Tux the
penguin mascot costume!) to take to open source conferences (see
Hack #53
).
Tethering a computer to your DSLR can offer you some big additional capabilities,
including in-the-moment settings adjustments for rapid subsequent exposures, near-
ly instant backups, and remote camera control from anywhere. The fact that the Pi is
so small makes the whole setup a lot more feasible.
Geting Started with gPhoto
The quickest way to get started on any of those projects or whatever else you can
imagine doing with a Pi-controlled camera is with gPhoto, which is a set of software
and libraries for doing just that. gPhoto supports more than 1,600 cameras, so there's
a good chance that unless you have either an exceptionally old or exceptionally new
piece of equipment, it's on the list. For example, if you own a Pi because you love tiny
things, that
supported list
even includes the absurdly small, 1.2-ounce, 2.36” x 1.52”
Che-ez SPYZ camera!
