Virtual Boy Multicart?

[darthkur]

All except these 4 rare ones have been released:

SD Gundam

Space Invaders

Virtual Bowling

Virtual Lab

 

Oh wonderful. Space Invaders was the one I was looking forward to the most. I just don't understand why certain roms are horded. That goes for every system too. Seriously, I would not think twice about releasing each and every rom in existence no matter how "rare and/or unique" they are. Retro games are excellent. I want everyone to enjoy them.

[TheRedEye]

Damn, that's a shame. I got to play Space Invaders once, and even though I have no love for the original, something about the VB version kept me hooked!

[Uzumaki]

Space Invaders

Virtual Bowling

Virtual Lab

 

Any idea if those 3 would work on the flash cart if they are dumped? I would love to get the flash cart for some Japanese only games and Space Invader is probably #1 on the list. I almost never see them on eBay and when I do, they go for a few hundred dollars or more.

[KR155E]

ALL games are tested and working, including those three.

[darthkur]

ALL games are tested and working, including those three.

 

 

I'm a bit confused. Previously you stated those were never dumped. Has that fact recently changed? Are these three rom's finally available? I've been wanting to play VB Space Invaders for some time now. I just can't ever bring myself to cough up the enormous amount they always go up to.

[KR155E]

no, i said they weren't released, not that they were never dumped. they are dumped, and a few people have those roms, but they're not publically available since the people who dumped their games did not want the roms to be released to not endanger the value of their games.

[darthkur]

no, i said they weren't released, not that they were never dumped. they are dumped, and a few people have those roms, but they're not publically available since the people who dumped their games did not want the roms to be released to not endanger the value of their games.

 

 

 

I see. That's the sort of thing that deeply upsets me. The reasoning behind their arguments is flawed. Just because people are able to play a game using an emulator or even via a multicart does not affect the desire collectors have to obtain the originals. For example, has the fact that the rom for Video Life, for the Atari 2600, having been available for some time now had even the slightest impact on what a real copy of the game is worth? I think the fact that one sold for five thousand dollars not too long ago on Ebay answers the question quite succinctly.

[PsychedelicShaman]

I see. That's the sort of thing that deeply upsets me. The reasoning behind their arguments is flawed. Just because people are able to play a game using an emulator or even via a multicart does not affect the desire collectors have to obtain the originals. For example, has the fact that the rom for Video Life, for the Atari 2600, having been available for some time now had even the slightest impact on what a real copy of the game is worth? I think the fact that one sold for five thousand dollars not too long ago on Ebay answers the question quite succinctly.

 

Agreed. It's a pretty selfish act when you think about it. For one they are not releasing a rom out to the retro gaming community. But also, it's not even their intellectual property. I'm pretty sure most programmers that made games 10-20 years ago would not mind their code/games being released to the public. It's just speculation, but I'm pretty sure they have other things to worry about. So just because they bought a cart doesn't mean it's their game; they shouldn't even be making the choice. Plus it's already been dumped, I mean come on, just release them!

[Uzumaki]

Any chance those of you who actually has the "forbidden" VB ROMs email them but type the wrong email address and it goes to someone else who isn't under any constraint to with hold them? Use anonymous email service from a computer far away like at public library to make tracking back a lot harder.

 

I really want to play those games and I'm not spending hundreds dollar to play em for 10 minutes.

[Uzumaki]

Any of you need "donor" cart for the connectors? Try this one: http://cgi.ebay.com/46-Copies-Virtual-Leag...1QQcmdZViewItem

 

46 copies of Baseball. that could mean 46 copies of multicarts

[KR155E]

oh wow, that's what i was looking for!

[Richard H.]

FYI I'm sending 25 boards to Chris on Monday. There's been a bit of a hold up with back-ordered components and the postal strike, but I finally managed to finish building and testing them today.

 

Also, we're thinking of supplying a box with every cart, just experimenting with some a few options at the moment. Chris has done a really nice authentic looking design.

 

 

BTW has anyone got a busted console ?, I need the cart connector so I can set up an easier / faster way of testing.

 

Let me know and I can PayPal you.

 

 

Thanks !

[Uzumaki]

I might have one somewhere. I have 3 VB head total and I know one is hopelessly damaged as a former store display. If I can find em, I'll post it here.

[Richard H.]

I might have one somewhere

 

At the moment I'm sending them to Chris with just the USB download tested. I'll rig up something with the VB connector where I can plug the connector-less boards into an improvised edge connector (with a ribbon cable connecting to the console).

 

Don't worry about trying to de-solder the connector. You can just isolate the PCB the connector is on (even cut around it).

 

 

 

Thanks

[Uzumaki]

YGPM re: VB cart connector

[Richard H.]

YGPM re: VB cart connector

[CabaretVoltaire]

Yeeeaaars ago I did a bit of Virtual Boy programming but lost interest because I didn't have any way of playing my stuff on the real thing and emulators don't do the system justice at all. I'm really excited about this

 

Richard, are you going to be selling these to UK folks? It looks like the Vr32 guys are in Germany and I know I would prefer getting one from within the UK. Anyway it looks really cool and I love my VecFlash.

[Richard H.]

Yeeeaaars ago I did a bit of Virtual Boy programming

You might be pleased to hear I've got the homebrew loading quicker. A 64K file now takes about 2 seconds.

 

 

Richard, are you going to be selling these to UK folks?

No, Chris is handling that. But don't worry, it's quick getting stuff shipped from Germany. I find it's sometimes actually quicker than UK to UK.

[Troma]

Any recent developments worthy of discussion?

 

Thanks!

 

Craig

Edited November 15, 2007 by Troma

[Richard H.]

It's just the box to house the cart that's the hold up. The hardware / software has been finished for a while now.

[Vectrexer]

It's just the box to house the cart that's the hold up. The hardware / software has been finished for a while now.

 

 

 

Question aout the loader. Is there a way to cache the last load, examine the currently loaded game, and then use the infomation to reduce the write time for the large games? The comparision being a tool to determin what need to be padded. Or has that topic been finsihed enough to not need improment?

[Richard H.]

Question aout the loader. Is there a way to cache the last load, examine the currently loaded game, and then use the infomation to reduce the write time for the large games?

 

It sort of does that already for homebrew. You can write the 'reset vectors' at the end of the flash, and then on subsequent loads just erase / write a few sectors at the beginning (for the code) leaving the padding ($ff) untouched in the middle. This only works for homebrew as the files are small and the vectors are unchanged. Commercial stuff either fills the entire flash or has different sorts of padding (+ the loading of these is plenty quick enough anyway).

 

I'm going to keep working on the loader more when I have free time. The important thing is to get the cart out there and me re-coup some of the (significant) development costs.

[PsychedelicShaman]

The order page is up. Link on the right of this page: http://www.vr32.de/modules/hardware/index....hcarts&v=fb

[Richard H.]

I was just about to post about it. I think it was yesterday when it was announced on PVB.

 

They'll be about 60 units available, I won't be able to build more boards (to send to Chris) until next year. I know Chris has a good stash of donor carts so no worries there.

[+remowilliams]

Yay! I got my Flashboy today!

 

Packaging and presentation look great. I hooked the cart to my Vista machine, padded out a ROM with the included software, ran the Flashboy software itself - and within a minute or so I was ready to go. Works like a champ!

 

Huge thanks to Richard, Chris and anyone else who worked hard to bring these to market!

 

Richard - one request, can you make that Flashboy app window resizeable?