Nostalgic Raspberry Pi Radio Tunes to Music From Past Decades

Raspberry Pi
(Image credit: Byte-rider)

The Raspberry Pi makes an excellent gift on its own, but getting one in a custom Time Machine Radio is remarkably fulfilling. This holiday, a maker known as Byte-rider created a custom Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W-powered radio for his father.

This custom radio has a professional design and clean finish that we think looks fantastic. There is a dial on one side that can tune into different decades. The Pi reads this input to play only music from the selected decade.

This Raspberry Pi project is open source for anyone interested in creating a Time Machine Radio of their own. According to Byte-rider, users will need a Pi Zero 2 W, a Pimoroni Audio Amp SHIMN, a 1000C Adafruit PowerBoost module, a PTV09A-4025F-B103 potentiometer for the knob, and a power switch. Everything is housed inside an old NR-3013 radio.

The software is available over at GitHub along with instructions for setting everything up on your Pi. The music used in this project was taken from the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.

To check out this project and hear it in action for yourself, check out the video shared to YouTube by Byte-rider on his official channel, Aleph Zero.

Ash Hill
Freelance News and Features Writer

Ash Hill is a Freelance News and Features Writer with a wealth of experience in the hobby electronics, 3D printing and PCs. She manages the Pi projects of the month and much of our daily Raspberry Pi reporting while also finding the best coupons and deals on all tech.