USBODE: An ODE for DOS and Newer PC’s

📰 New article from RetroRGB

USBODE: An ODE for DOS and Newer PC’s

🕹️ USBODE: Bring CD Games to Old PCs (Without a CD Drive!) 🕹️

Want to play classic DOS games that need a CD-ROM, but your retro PC doesn’t have a CD-ROM drive? USBODE is a cool new project that lets you use CD images (ISO/BIN/CUE) on an SD card to emulate a CD-ROM drive via a Raspberry Pi Zero W!

Here’s the breakdown:

  • What it does: Turns a Raspberry Pi Zero W into a CD-ROM emulator that connects to your PC via USB.
  • How it works: You load CD images onto an SD card, plug the Pi into your computer, and it appears as a CD-ROM drive.
  • Setup: Requires installing software on an SD card, configuring Wi-Fi, and loading your CD images. A test build is available on the project’s Discord server.
  • Features:
  • Works with DOS, Windows, and even modern OSes.
  • Optional Pi Hats add on-device controls and even CD Audio playback in DOS!
  • Best For: DOS & Windows 3.1 – perfect for bringing CD-based games to older machines without needing physical drives.
  • Limitations: Doesn’t work with multi-file BINs (requires merging), some copy protection may not work, and it’s still under development!

Want to learn more?

June 15, 2025 (0)