We’re excited to announce that our hit retro gaming book Code the Classics Volume I, recently released in a revised edition, is joined by even more vintage gaming goodness! Code the Classics Volume II is out now, featuring five games inspired by video games of the 1980s. This new volume takes you on a tour of the games that inspired their remakes. It also includes code listings and explanations to help you learn how to write games of your own.

If you played computer games back in the 1980s, you may have typed game code into your computer. Back then, computer game listings graced the pages of books from Usborne and magazines like ANALOG Computing and The Micro User. Spend a couple of hours of typing in code, and soon you’d be playing a game you could modify and learn from. A reasonable trade: you’d earn a gaming experience that matched what you could buy from your local computer store. And you’d learn a bit along the way!

Code the Classics Volume II features retro arcade games written by Andrew Gillett, ably assisted by Raspberry Pi co-founder and CEO Eben Upton along with Sean M. Tracey. Dan Malone (famous for his work with The Bitmap Brothers) created the game graphics, and long-time game audio pro Allister Brimble provided the music and sound effects. Simon Brew, David Crookes, and Liz Upton wrote the stories that take you behind the scenes of the creation of the five classic arcade games featured in this book. What’s more, the book opens with a foreword from Dr. David Braben, co-creator of best-selling computer game Elite.

In this new volume, you’ll meet these vintage-inspired games, and learn from their code in between rounds of play:

• Avenger: fly across a scrolling landscape while you save humans from malevolent aliens
• Beat Streets: fight your way through a level, and defeat a notorious crime boss
• Eggzy: collect gems and survive as long as possible before time runs out
• Leading Edge: Race a car on a pseudo-3D race track
• Kinetix: Break bricks with your paddle, and use powerups to avoid various menaces

Code the Classics Volume II features abridged code listings along with detailed explanations of the game logic. Not only that, you can download the source code from our GitHub repo and play all the games yourself. The book is available now from the Raspberry Pi Press store, and will be on sale from various print and electronic bookstores in the coming weeks.

Pay what you want for a bundle of books

What’s more, between now and Saturday 5 October 2024 (at 11 AM Pacific), you can get this and other fantastic books as part of our latest Humble Bundle. Pay what you want for 14 books from Raspberry Pi Press and learn about Raspberry Pi, retro gaming, and Python.

The post Code the Classics Volume II from Raspberry Pi Press appeared first on Raspberry Pi.

As affordable as Raspberry Pi Pico is, there are plenty of reasons to want to make your own board based on the chip that powers it, RP2040. We’re releasing a new book today that helps you do just that: Design an RP2040 board with KiCad (by Jo Hinchliffe and Ben Everard). KiCad is an amazing piece of free and open-source software that allows anyone, with some time and effort, to make high-quality PCB designs. Couple this amazing software with numerous PCB fabrication companies and even PCBA services (companies that will make and assemble your PCB designs), and you can go from idea to finished board more quickly than ever.

This book provides a gentle introduction to PCB design using the RP2040 microcontroller chip (the same chip that’s at the heart of Raspberry Pi Pico). You’ll learn the basics of creating schematics and PCB designs in KiCad and learn how to work with component footprints that you create yourself (or get from another source). You’ll find out how to get a PCB design manufactured — and populated with surface-mount components. Before long, you’ll be holding your own board in your hands.

After you use KiCad to design your RP2040 board, this book will show you how to send it off to be manufactured and assembled. You’ll find out about the various materials (or substrates) you can choose for your board, and learn how to pick the right manufacturer. Once you have your board in hand, you’ll also learn what you can do (and make!) with it. Our new book also includes information on designing specialised boards, such as motor drivers and game controllers.

Design an RP2040 board with KiCad is available now from the Raspberry Pi Press store, and will be on sale from various print and electronic bookstores in the coming weeks.

Pay what you want for a bundle of books

What’s more, between now and Saturday, 5 October, 2024 (at 11 AM Pacific), you can get this and other fantastic books as part of our latest Humble Bundle. Pay what you want for 14 books from Raspberry Pi Press and learn about Raspberry Pi, retro gaming, and Python.

The post New book release: Design an RP2040 board with KiCad appeared first on Raspberry Pi.