Slot - the best retrogaming frontend

I'm always on the lookout for new gaming frontends and have recently discovered one for the GameBoy Advance called slot, it's designed for use on the Anbernic RG SP but works on other Anbernic devices too.  GBA is it's main system although GameBoy and GameBoy Color games can also be added.  And having tried it for a couple of weeks now I can honestly say it is an absolute game-changer for GBA on the Anbernic RG SP.

Firstly, as you can see from the image it displays each GBA game as the actual cartridge, to start playing your selected game simply press 'A' the cartridge disappears into the slot at the bottom of the screen and uses the actual sound effect of a GBA cartridge being inserted which is a really nice touch, the creator of slot recorded it from an actual GBA!  To exit the game simply press and hold the Menu button and out it pops back into the carousel.

Installing and setting up slot is really simple, firstly you require the BaseOS firmware which can be obtained from https://github.com/pvaibhav/BaseOS - flash this onto a blank SD card, put it in your RG SP and wait until the message is displayed on the screen that a frontend is needed.  Now switch the machine off, remove the SD card and put it in a PC or laptop.  Next download slot from https://github.com/BrandonKowalski/slot extract the zip file and copy this over to the SD card, then it's simply a case of copying over your GBA, GB and GBC roms.

But there's one more thing to be done and that's to add the labels for the cartridges, which can be done via a feature on the slot website at https://slot-cfw.fyi called Studio, while keeping the SD card in the PC or laptop select it in Studio which will then scan all the games you've added and attempt to add the labels for them (it does a pretty good job of this actually), if there are any missing then simply select it and the built-in database will, in most cases display the required label, select it and move onto the next one.  In my experience of this there were only three games I could get the labels for and had to search for and make my own which wasn't surprising as the three missing ones were for Pokemom rom hacks.  Once you have all your labels, simply press 'write to SD card', safely eject the card, insert it back into your RG SP, switch it on and it should look like the image at the top of this post.

There are a number of other things that can be done in slot, pressing up or down on the d-pad moves along the shelf from one letter to the next, pressing 'Y' saves a game in your Favourites list, pressing start allows you to choose which GBA emulator to use, and pressing L1/R1 switches between systems if you've GB or GBC games installed as well.  An option is also available in the Settings to display a 'Recently Played' list.

As I said at the start of this post slot really has changed how I play GameBoy Advance, it really is a joy to use, it's the best retrogaming frontend I've tried and I can't recommend it enough!

Why I love the Sony PSP Go

 

The original Playstation Portable (PSP) was truly a handheld ahead of it's time with excellent graphics and a varied library of games which came on Sony's own format called UMD (Universal Media Disc) designed specifically for the PSP, despite all this it never sold as many units as the company had hoped but still maintains a cult following with retrogaming enthusiasts to this day and I love the red PSP 3000 I own as part of my collection.

However in an attempt to boost sales Sony then launched the PSP Go, a digital only, tiny pocket sized device but the main stumbling block here was that because it was digital only and didn't use the UMDs it means anyone who already owned a game on UMD would have to purchase and download it again in order to play it on the PSP Go, this as you can imagine was not a popular idea and the machine was not a hit for Sony.  Although many years later if you can find a modified PSP Go as I did from the excellent modxgaming.com it is still worth getting hold of one in 2026.  The benefit of a modded PSP Go is that it is possible to add your own PSP .iso files to the SD card, this requires a little bit of effort as the SD card is attached to a ribbon adapter inside the machine, but it's just a simple question of unscrewing the back plate, carefully removing the SD card, popping it in a PC or laptop and copying over as many PSP roms as you require.

I did this with mine and now have a really impressive library of around 70 or so of the best PSP titles including Gran Turismo, Tekken, Virtua Tennis and Soul Calibur to name but a few.

The machine itself is tiny and very cute, it's only slightly bigger than my hand!  The size of the machine doesn't detract from playing games at all all of which play great and the controls are perfectly usable and responsive.  And sliding the machine up to boot up never gets old!  It loads the game list quickly and the battery life is good, better I think than the full size PSP 3000.

If you've any interest in the PSP I would absolutely recommend a modded PSP Go, it looks great, plays the games well and is extremely pocketable, I am extremely happy with mine!