This is great. I’m saving this for later

Alright. Well, I tried but I have really used transistors or MOSFETs since college. Those diagrams you had looked like they made sense to me, so the only thing I could think of is the transistors are expecting a different voltage from what the batteries are providing. But, it looks like some other people have responded that are much more familiar with transistors, good luck! I hope you get this working in time

Any possibility that you have some small solid state relays sitting around? Power to the coil can be the tripwire, so when that is cut and the relay closes the NC contacts it turns on the speaker

The cat box video worked for me

Project Zomboid.

Zombie survival game that has a really good loop of kill zombies, find loot, transport and sort loot, train skills/fix equipment/improve your base, and then find a new place to loot. It’s honestly more like a Sims game than a typical zombie game. You need to find ways to stay busy and entertained because you can get bored and depressed. Electricity and water will be turned off sometime in the first month (it’s randomized) so you need to find and learn how to use a generator to run a fridge/freezer otherwise food spoils in a couple of days. Water can come from a pond or river but it needs to be boiled if you don’t want to die from a hurt tummy, or if your carpentry skill is high enough you can make rain catchers. The game typically gets massive updates every 1-3 years and the latest one added livestock and blacksmithing.

It can be a hard game to get into and learn because there is so much to it, but it’s really satisfying once things start making sense. And it sounds like something you are looking for

If this isn’t already a mod, it needs to be made

Never realized the chip had Morse code on it. That’s the chip from the collector’s edition, right?

It is absolutely true. I grew up in a large urban city but now I live and work in rural, very conservative area. People who have never been within 20 miles of an urban area think it is a garentee that if you step on a train or bus, there will be someone running end to end giving everyone the “London Special” 🔪. Some people seemed genuinely surprised to hear that I’ve never been robbed or had my car stolen. It is fucking wild what happens when someone watches nothing but Fox News all day

Not sure what kind of features they are looking for, but GIMP has been able to do everything I’ve ever needed

Yes, it’s actually called GIMP. It’s not a kink thing… Yet 😏

I’m not too familiar with emulation handhelds, but I think finding one that is $200 and can run GameCube games is a pretty big ask… I think your best bet would be a used Steam Deck. Looks like the older models can go for around $300 on eBay and some of the ones I saw had a 1TB upgrade already unstalled

Nah. I can understand why someone would think that way, but the more I work with tech the more I want to mod or jailbreak my own stuff so it doesn’t suck

Same thing as chainsaws. Go ahead, Google why the chainsaw was invented

Unfortunately, I don’t think it is in the game. But I wouldn’t be surprised if a modder snuck a gecko wearing a cowboy hat into a mod

Don’t Stop, Girlypop!

Free demo on steam, and it looks like it’ll release in January

I may be an engineer, but I am still too fucking stupid to get a job at an arms company

They’ll never find the noods I keep stashed in my socks

Dokapon Kingdom

It’s like Mario Party, but with RPG elements. Start with classes like warrior, mage, and thief, and more classes unlock later on. You use dice to decide how many spaces you move around the map, and fight bandits and orcs and stuff. Every now and then the king/princess will give a quest to go and take back some stolen things from a bandit. First person that can land on that space fights the bandit to get the loot back, and then you have to bring it back to the castle. Other players can land on your tile and fight you to steal the loot. Towns around the map have a boss monster and if you can kill it you “control” the town and get passive income, other players can steal the town for you. Mario Party is known for ending friendships, but it doesn’t even compare to the levels of cutthroat betrayal that happen in Dokapon. 10/10 highly recommend

Gotta be bloatflys or something like that. Maybe cazadors

Y’all had to give your ids to discord? They haven’t asked for that from me yet, and if they ever do I’m going to see if they instantly ban me by sending them this

At the moment, I have a N64 modded with a PixelFx HDMI converter, a GameCube with a MKII EON which is just a composite to HDMI converter that plugs into the back, and a PS2 with a really shitty standard composite to HDMI converter that is powered by one of the PS2’s USB ports. All of those, and a couple of non-retro consoles, feed into a 7x1 HDMI switch and then into the TV. And the TV outputs all the audio to a sound bar. I just finished modding the N64, but I have another PixelFx for the PS2 because the lag of the converter is really starting to piss me off, and an untouched Wii sitting in the closet.

Modding the consoles is just what I prefer so that they work on modern TVs, and it gives me something to tinker around with. The problem with that route is that the mods can be expensive, paying someone to install them is really fucking expensive, and even if you have the know-how to install them yourself there is still a chance you can brick your console (there is also the rotting carcass of an Xbox in my closet, but we don’t mention it after 3 years of headaches). However, you said that you already have a TV with composite and component hookups, and it looks like there are composite and component switches like what I am using for my HDMIs. That would probably be the best way to go for you, and it looks like you could get one for about $30 USD. I dunno if a switch will degrade the signal quality at all, but I haven’t noticed any with my HDMI switch and I think I got mine for around $40 USD. When it comes to quality… Look, the consoles and their games are dated. No amount of lossless converting or upscaling is going to make them look like a game on the PS5 or Xbox Series SSX Tricky whatever the fuck it’s called. You’ve got some consoles and a TV that you can plug them directly into, that’s about as good as it’s going to get without diving through a trash heap to find a CRT. If you do end up getting a component/composite switch, maybe get 1 OSSC between the switch and the TV if you really want one. You don’t have to spend tons of money on something because some nerd on reddit insists it the “best and only way to experience retro games” just do whatever works best for you and remember to have fun