The Grand Theft Auto franchise has at all times been deeply satirical — one thing that outspoken ethical critics of the sequence by no means fairly appear to understand. The radio stations gamers hear in vehicles whereas they’re driving round are good examples, as they’re over-the-top caricatures that lampoon real-life radio stations. A few of them even play actually good music. Redditor Key_Historian_2454 needed that leisure in his actual automobile in the actual world, so he constructed this gadget that lets him take heed to GTA Radio via his automobile’s stereo.
It is a small gadget with a spherical LCD display to indicate the present station’s emblem and dial to scroll via the out there stations. It transmits audio over FM, so any close by FM radio can tune-in. Key_Historian_2454 included all the radio stations from each 3D Grand Theft Auto recreation, so there’s a fairly substantial assortment. Questionable copyright points apart, these audio information can be found on-line for those that know the place to look. Additionally it is potential to extract the audio information immediately from the put in video games’ directories, when you personal the video games.
Sadly, Key_Historian_2454 hasn’t but supplied many technical particulars on the challenge. We are able to see that the enclosure was 3D-printed and Key_Historian_2454 states that there’s a Raspberry Pi Zero and an FM transmitter, with energy coming from a USB adapter. The show is a GC9A01-based spherical LCD. However we don’t know what Key_Historian_2454 used for the dial, or if it’s a potentiometer or a rotary encoder.
We do know {that a} Python script working on the Raspberry Pi handles audio playback primarily based on the consumer station choice. When the consumer switches stations, it picks a random timestamp for that station’s MP3 file to start out playback. That mimics the in-game expertise and that of real-life radio stations.
One may obtain one thing related with a smartphone app, however the self-contained and tactile expertise right here could be very interesting. And it’s secure to say that Key_Historian_2454 will probably be excited so as to add the stations from GTA VI when it lastly releases subsequent 12 months.
