Never had any trouble, but we don't use a very complicated setup. Had to pull all the cables out of my bag at the handluggage check once after it went through the scan. Kind of weird as they'd probably see something bomb-like pretty fast on a scanner but I guess they just wanted to make sure.

Sorry, no

Personally I make sure all of my electronics have "FUCK THE POLICE" laser-etched into the PCB

For real though, I never bag-check my gear when flying through American airports unless I absolutely have no other choice. I've heard too many horror stories of equipment being damaged or outright stolen by TSA agents. Better to take it through security in your carry-on if you can.

Could that accidentally be read as something like "hey, cunt-cops" in Finnish?

I have traveled many places with many "odd" looking electronic devices. I would not worry about anything. If they think its an actual bomb, then they are terrible at their job. Most of the people I encounter are super excited/interested once they realize it's the same stuff they used as a kid. The best is looking at the X-ray operators face when you have 15-20 GB's with crazy wires and switches and whatnot go through...gets me every time.

You were probably fine because there's no case on it. It's pretty easy to tell if something isn't a bomb when it's clear that there are no explosives anywhere on the device.

I flew to Manchester with setup like this on my luggage featuring huge amount of cords. I think that, if something can look like a bomb, but i had no problems.
Even the battery says: Oh shit, cops.
lol

I've never had anyone bat an eye at my Game Boys when flying, apart from a Japanese couple in line behind me once who were fascinated by them and who I tried to explain chipmusic to through the language barrier.

Last couple times they haven't even had me take any electronics smaller than my laptop out of my carry on bag. These are all domestic flights though, I would suspect they're more paranoid on international ones.

except your colon.

If you wear this, they won't even bother looking at your stuff.

I guess this joke is no longer funny?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3rONgKIm8I

Yo 99% of people - including TSA inspectors - wouldn't know the difference between a backlit and non-backlit gameboy. In fact unless there's exposed wires and MAYBE potentiometers without knobs on them, nobody is going to bat an eye when your gameboy lights up.

I've been on airplanes with modified DMGs and modified effects pedals without any incident. But TSA did swab the inside of my guitar case while making a joke by saying something like "You look like a musician so I've got to swab for drug residue." I think he just wanted to see what kind of guitar I had in the case which happened to be a heavily modified USA Fender Stratocaster. And they stole all the lighters I had in my checked luggage and left a note saying that if I want my lighters back I needed to call some number which I never did.

never had any issues with game consoles and music gear, though i never flew with bent drum machines to avoid that one potential problem.. backlit game boys, electribes, video samplers, video mixers, etc all had no trouble at all (even in my carry-on: i never check my gear)