Hello all new member

Hi tallonoverlord,

I wrote a blog a while back with some suggestions on how to get started in electronics and some of the guys added some great suggestions.

https://www.element14.com/community/people/jw0752/blog/2015/11/04/i-want-to-do-electronics-where-do-i-start

Anytime along the way feel free to post your questions on the forum. There are lots of helpful guys here and very little attitude. Welcome to the forum and I hope we can help you achieve your goal.

John

Thank you John I look forward to reading over it oh, I did take a quick glance at it it's a tad wordy but I think it should help thank you. Aside from being able to maintain and restore my older systems, I would also like to learn how to update them with things like HDMI ports USB and so forth. I know that HDMI for an older system like a Super Nintendo or an N64 might not be ideal, however with the newer TVs I am finding it harder and harder to find the arv ports. So having the knowledge on how to upgrade the system so they can go with newer TVs would be great. I also would like to be able to learn how to build my own HDMI switch as I have limited ports on my TV. So I have many projects and many goals in mind, if I think of any more I'll let you know. But for now I just need simple basic exercises that I can do to learn how to solder circuits, and other electronic work. Thank you for your time on this matter. I hope to get to know everyone here better.

Welcome! I recommend that your first project be something you're really interested in. In my experience, the drive to finish a project depends on how invested you are in the finished product. Once you know what you want to make, don't be afraid to fail. That's how we learn. Hopefully the community can help you get past any speed bumps you come across during your build. Good luck!

Welcome!  This a great place to learn, and being driven by a passion (like gaming) always makes the learning easier.  When learning always remember to dream big, but act small.  Take baby steps, like easy projects to allow you learn without getting buried under an avalanche of failure or hard knocks.

Look around, ask questions and don't be afraid to try something new.

Enjoy!

Something I have pondered is a drop counter for some of my games. Something you an plug in and it will tell you how close you are to a rare drop in the game. I have seen simplistic "shiny counters" for pokemon games to calculates the odds of finding or hatching a shiny pokemon. Have you ever worked with such a device?

That sounds more like a program than a device given that it would have to read the game code to sense when an item is dropped, what the item is, and being able to reference a library to determine how rare it is. Aren't rare drops typically a constant percentage chance of drop? So it's not necessarily that every 100th drop you will get a rare, but that every drop there is a 1/100 chance of having a rare drop? Given that, you could potentially track how many drops you've had and have it reset when a rare is dropped so you at least have an idea how long it's been since a rare drop. Does that sound right to you?

I have seen a device someone built for pokemon rare drop. It plugged into the GBA. It was a small board with a counter screen. It wasnt anything complicated. I dont really know what I could build gaming wise. Any recommendations?

A lot of people take a Raspberry Pi and build a small MAME, either handheld or a small cabinet. There are a lot of tutorials out there and examples of what people have done. You can fill it with whatever games you like most and put your own style into the case. It also gets you a good start with case fabrication, a bit of assembling electronics, and a bit of code. Gets you a little bit of everything to start and there are a ton of references online to help you out when you get stuck. And you can use whatever tools and materials you have access to. For someone interested in gaming, I think that would be a great place to start.

I have not worked with Raspberry Pi. I have heard of it though. Wasnt aware you could VM games on it though. Actually had no idea what it was being used for. The problem is most emulation software isnt all that great for alot of games. You say its easy for a beginner to use, have you worked with it?

A little. I haven't set up a gaming system on one yet, but I have a lot of friends that have. I was thinking of using one to make a PLEX server for my house. Felix and I made a Photo Booth using a Raspberry P for the Ben Heck Show. I feel I would have been able to do it alone following the instructions I found online. There's a learning curve, but I think it's achievable by someone new to electronics and programming if you're willing to stick with it to completion.