Either I’m the luckiest mother f***er in the world and just found the same exact unique Virtual Boy unit that I lost on Ebay like 8 years ago…

http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=6227&post_id=33090#forumpost33090

…or there is more than one of these unique units in existence.

When I received this in the mail, the very first thing I noticed when I pulled the unit out of its packaging was the weight of this head unit, it’s heavy as hell! This is because the unique base plate is made of solid metal, it’s almost as heavy as the head unit itself.

I personally don’t know what to make of this unit, it would just all be assumptions.

Gang, we might have another mystery on our hands! 🙂

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That base was made on some sort of milling machine. The grooves in it look like what comes out of ours at work.

Someone must have been trying to mount that somewhere pretty permanently. Congrats on the weird machine. 🙂

jrronimo wrote:
Congrats on the weird machine. 🙂

Haha. Thanks! 😛

I’m very determined to figure out what the base plate on this unit is all about. I really want to show the community that this is NOT just an average Virtual Boy head unit with a custom base plate on it, not for the sake of being right or anything like that, but if I am right, then I think this unit deserves a place in the VB history book…

Now, it’s going to be very hard for me to determine the exact use of the base plate, but it’s going to be very easy for me to prove that the head unit itself is no average Virtual Boy. 🙂

How do I know this?! Simple, included with this head unit was a recently discovered USA demo tap, and we can associate those demo taps with the white box USA demo units…

http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=4547&viewmode=flat&order=ASC&type=&mode=0&start=0

So most likely, this was a very early unit…

Wow.

vuefinder83 wrote:
… included with this head unit was a recently discovered USA demo tap, and we can associate those demo taps with the white box USA demo units…

http://www.planetvb.com/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?topic_id=4547&viewmode=flat&order=ASC&type=&mode=0&start=0

So most likely, this was a very early unit…

Yeah, I have to agree with you there. The base plate itself certainly shows that it was intended for this unit to be put out on some sort of display for demonstration purposes, for a lot of different people to be able to try out the Virtual Boy in a comfortable setting. The presence of the demo tap shows that this unit was very likely in use before or around the time of the beginning of mass production of VB units. I guess the only questions that remain are:

1. Was the display a custom one, made by someone either who had to make up for the fact that Nintendo had no proper demonstration display at the time or else who could not acquire one of Nintendo’s proper displays at the time?

2. Was the display actually made by Nintendo, in which case such a rare display has yet to be found in the wild?

Benjamin Stevens wrote:

Yeah, I have to agree with you there. The base plate itself certainly shows that it was intended for this unit to be put out on some sort of display for demonstration purposes, for a lot of different people to be able to try out the Virtual Boy in a comfortable setting. The presence of the demo tap shows that this unit was very likely in use before or around the time of the beginning of mass production of VB units. I guess the only questions that remain are:

1. Was the display a custom one, made by someone either who had to make up for the fact that Nintendo had no proper demonstration display at the time or else who could not acquire one of Nintendo’s proper displays at the time?

2. Was the display actually made by Nintendo, in which case such a rare display has yet to be found in the wild?

I’ve been putting a lot of thought into this base plate the past couple of days, and I think my most recent findings might actually answer both of your questions! 😉

I decided to remove the head unit from my counter display to maybe get some better ideas for the actual use of the base plate. I was blown away when I removed the head unit and the support bracket wich holds the head unit in place…

The shape of the dust from the support bracket and a normal VB head unit forms the shape of the unique base plate! (see first picture)

So I then placed the unit with the unique base plate over the dust formation, and it lined up perfectly, even the two holes on the base plate match up to the screw holes used to screw the support bracket in place. I was even able to screw the unique head unit right to the display, safely and well screwed by using the displays original screws for the support bracket…

I could only assume this, but it seems to me that the unique base plate was the creation of Design Phase, as a early concept on a way to secure head units to displays perhaps?

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vuefinder83 wrote:
… it seems to me that the unique base plate was the creation of Design Phase, as a early concept on a way to secure head units to displays perhaps?

Sweet! Now THAT is some seriously strong evidence! Yeah, I’d have to say now that the base plate had to be made by Design Phase. There’s just no way that some retail store or other possible custom display maker would have made a base plate that perfectly fits into one of Design Phase’s displays. For that to happen, they basically would have had to have already had one of these displays in their possession, in which case there would be absolutely no reason to go to such lengths to make such a hefty and fine-looking, custom base plate. Design Phase probably ended up going the standard base plate with support bracket route to save on costs, rather than make more of the hefty base plates, one of which you now have in your possession.

Never added mine in this second thread, just the original. Came from a Nintendo Rep whose job was to repair kiosks and such, brand new in the white box!
No other accessories were included.
Same unique base.

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