Hello all, I was sent here from Seattle Retro Gamers on Facebook. Where there was some previous discusion.

I have in my possession an authentic, functional, 1995 prototype cartridge of Bound High for the Virtual Boy.

It is as of yet unclear to me what version of the game I have? If it is the same or different than the buggy->patched ROM used to make the repros? What is the easiest way for me to determine the version?

I have included pics of the cartridge and PCB. (I apologise my phone camera sucks.)

Any further information, or insight would be appreciated.

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Cpt. F. wrote:
I was able to capture from ON to Stage 1. It appears identical to the full YouTube playthrough previously referenced.

The only thing I noticed was the lack of the sound effect that happens as soon as you flick the power switch. Unless you hit record just after that sound. Here’s the sound for reference:(https://youtu.be/nwiZ8O0-qvw?t=1m10s)

Otherwise yeah, looks close to final (although you blew past everything pretty fast =P)

Still a dump would be awesome to really compare. It’s also really cool to see another VB proto show up, it always gives us hope for the next one and to possibly uncover a game that hasn’t been found yet =D

Cpt. F. wrote:
Is there another finished prototype of this game besides the one I have?

The history of the cart is pretty limited to be honest. At some point it walked out of NOA, that much is certain. May have been passed around, unclear. Then it sat in storage until now, when I asked my associate to let me investigate his old collection. He does not wish to be involved.

I am by no means a VB expert. From what I can recall, the version we have now was compiled from source and no actual cart has ever surfaced. The reason I am interested in the history is that this cart looks production ready yet it has a battery. Bound High! uses a password system. So it has me wondering, what is this cart exactly? Was it a late prototype where they were toying with battery saves? Did someone from Nintendo add to another PCB to build this proto?

I’m really happy to see that this exists. I hope you are able to borrow the community dumper so that the ROM can be compared to the build we are currently enjoying!

Lester Knight wrote:

I am by no means a VB expert. From what I can recall, the version we have now was compiled from source and no actual cart has ever surfaced.

That’s right. The ROM we have was built from slightly modified source code. It was a single switch statement that had to be rewritten to work around a bug in the official C compiler (VUCC). VUCC outputs ISX files, which are binaries with added debug headers for use with the VUE-Debugger. Two separate ISX converters had been written by LameBoy and RunnerPack for this cause. I think we used RP’s to convert the final ROM that was released.

Earlier attempts to build using gccVB and VUCC produced two buggy ROMs which ran well on emulators but crapped out on hardware. I didn’t release these publically until it came to my attention that someone from the “inner circle” that were given the ROM did some shady business selling the ROM and fake prototype cartridges to people.

All in all, it took almost 7 years from obtaining the source code to finally being able to build a good ROM from it.

Lester Knight wrote:

The reason I am interested in the history is that this cart looks production ready yet it has a battery. Bound High! uses a password system. So it has me wondering, what is this cart exactly? Was it a late prototype where they were toying with battery saves? Did someone from Nintendo add to another PCB to build this proto?

The SRAM is present simply because it’s a generic development flash cart that was meant to be used for any kind of game, with or without save support. I don’t think a dev cart without SRAM even exists.

Fun fact: these carts even come with 64 KByte of SRAM (Sharp LH5264TH-L). That’s 8 times the size of retail carts’ SRAM, which had only 8 KByte.

Thanks Chris!

I had no idea, Chris! Thanks for sharing the info. This is all going to be so useful when I eventually cover the prototype games on my channel. 🙂

All in all, it took almost 7 years from obtaining the source code to finally being able to build a good ROM from it.

Geez, a valiant effort indeed.

I can’t imagine how much work and effort this Dev cart could have saved everyone of it had been around back then…

From some of the reading I’ve done, it seems it could have been around or one just like it. A stand-alone Bound High! cart was rumored to exist and mentioned in a few posts and PMs that were made public.

…a 100% fully working version of Bound High that plays flawlessly on the hardware. I have the only copy of this that I know of. It is dumped from an actual cart and not pieced together from code. So far I have spoken to nobody else who has such a thing. Just finding someone with the cart is near impossible, let alone finding someone to let you dump it. This is definitely the real deal. I can provide a video as proof if you would like.

It would be interesting know if the cart you are representing is one in the same.

someone from the “inner circle” that were given the ROM did some shady business selling the ROM and fake prototype cartridges to people.

It’s not a new thing then 🙁

We need to throw these people off the site.

MineStorm wrote:
If you want to dump it, we can send you the community dumper (as I like to call it). It’s an adapted retrode 2 unit.

AFAIK Eric (bigmak) or Ben has it at the moment.

Don’t what ever you do send the cart to Mellott (he’ll steal the ROM and make carts for EBay).

LOL. You’re too funny.

Didn’t someone say in this very thread that you made Bound High carts for them? You paid the original Bound High developer for that, right? Or was money > ethics? Funny how it’s not a problem if you’re doing it.

Didn’t someone say in this very thread that you made Bound High carts for them?

Correct. All the Bound High carts I made, were either given away, swapped for a donor cart, or sold for the cost of the parts.

As for the HF production (and the reason I’m so angry), the 3 people involved (me, Eric and Tusk) made nothing. I didn’t even break even on the parts. That’s right, it actually cost me to make them.

[Super Bros.]

Accurate, I literally received my copy for free from MineStorm. It was an awesome gift, then I later paid UncleTusk $20 for the new label, instructions and box. I have actually never swapped labels though because I didn’t want to damage my gift.

Thanks again for being so cool to me all these years MineStorm! I’d also like to recognize everything that Eric (bigmak) has also done for me. I honestly wouldn’t be as into the system if I didn’t meet you two.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 11 months ago by Super Bros..

I have read through all those old BH threads from 2010 & 2013 and do not believe the cart I have has any connection to them or jojobean. It is unclear if he even actually had access to a 100% cart, or was just bluffing.

Lester Knight wrote:
From some of the reading I’ve done, it seems it could have been around or one just like it. A stand-alone Bound High! cart was rumored to exist and mentioned in a few posts and PMs that were made public.

…a 100% fully working version of Bound High that plays flawlessly on the hardware. I have the only copy of this that I know of. It is dumped from an actual cart and not pieced together from code. So far I have spoken to nobody else who has such a thing. Just finding someone with the cart is near impossible, let alone finding someone to let you dump it. This is definitely the real deal. I can provide a video as proof if you would like.

It would be interesting know if the cart you are representing is one in the same.

I wanna see the cartridge get dumped and compared with our copy. It would be truly fascinating to see if it has more features or such.

Dreammary wrote:
I wanna see the cartridge get dumped and compared with our copy. It would be truly fascinating to see if it has more features or such.

This is probably going to be the only way I’d assume. Be able to really compare the code between the two.

it would be a tragedy if it wasn’t dumped and compared.

MineStorm wrote:
If you want to dump it, we can send you the community dumper (as I like to call it). It’s an adapted retrode 2 unit.

AFAIK Eric (bigmak) or Ben has it at the moment.

I may be interested in borrowing this device. I will have to carefully discuss this tricky subject with my associate when I get the chance, which is infrequent.

Can the respective parties involved please PM the details?

Cpt. F. wrote:

MineStorm wrote:
If you want to dump it, we can send you the community dumper (as I like to call it). It’s an adapted retrode 2 unit.

AFAIK Eric (bigmak) or Ben has it at the moment.

I may be interested in borrowing this device. I will have to carefully discuss this tricky subject with my associate when I get the chance, which is infrequent.

Can the respective parties involved please PM the details?

No pressure but if he has any other protos, they’d be more than welcomed here =P

HOLY!!! I want to see this dumped online or a least gameplay footage! This is gold 😀

I just hope that dumping it does not open a can of worms. Everyone needs to be excited for the fact that this ROM has the potential to be something new. Beyond that, there should be no expectations.

I won’t expect too much from this, it’s probably just the final version we have with a few different bytes due to a different compiler version used to build or due to the changes we made to the source. But who knows! At least, in any case, this would be a 100% officially built, “clean” ROM. Also, the cartridge itself is already a huge find, since it’s the first (final version of an) official Virtual Boy flash cart to surface!

Levine91 wrote:
No pressure but if he has any other protos, they’d be more than welcomed here =P

Since this was once a NOA internal cartridge of Bound High it’s not totally unlikely that a Dragon Hopper cartridge is in the same hands. However, since Dragon Hopper hasn’t been around before, other than Bound High, this would probably be an even more “tricky subject”. Let’s see how the Bound High story continues and if the existence of another cartridge might eventually be revealed.

However, Cpt. F., in case your associate is willing to sell any other cartridges he might have, please PM me, I can forward you to people who would be willing to spend obscene amounts of money on those. 😉

Cpt. F. wrote:
I have read through all those old BH threads from 2010 & 2013 and do not believe the cart I have has any connection to them or jojobean. It is unclear if he even actually had access to a 100% cart, or was just bluffing.

There was never any actual cartridge involved. All versions out there were built from the final source code obtained from one of the game’s developers afaik.

Besides jojobean, I guess am not free of guilt of fueling the confusion, since I too have spoken of a cartridge once, like here: https://www.planetvb.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=202 I am not sure why I did that but I guess I was either not allowed to or unsure how to communicate having the sources at that point in time.