I’m not sure about powering another VB from the link +5V… it’d likely work, but possibly overload the regulator. You can power a VB by driving the +5V directly with regulated +5V though.

DogP

Heh… that’s how all my first pics turn out, since I always forget to turn my flash off until the second shot 😛 . I think there’s a thread somewhere on taking good pics, but basically just turn the flash off, keep the camera and the VB still, and get the lens as close to the eyepiece as possible (and look at the preview to make sure you’re centered in the eyepiece so it doesn’t cut off part of the pic).

For posting pics… what’s wrong with attaching the file, like this (like you did):

DogP

Attachments:

1. 

   virtualboy.jpg
   

I couldn’t find any pics of any of them, but I just soldered wires directly to the PLCC legs, very similar to the SMT PLCC sockets at the bottom of the page: http://www.projectvb.com/tech/carts/flash.html . And yeah, you could make a dumper and flash them through it if you connected the /WE line to the edge… though that’d be way overkill IMO. That dumper was a huge mess of wires, and not convenient to use at all. If you want a cart with non-removable chips that you can easily reflash, you might as well get a Flashboy or make something similar.

And yeah, the largest flash chip in that package type is 4mbit, so you can only do ROMs up to 1MB. For 2MB you’d need to do an EPROM, or go with a SMT package like SOIC or TSOP.

DogP

Heh… I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten an email in German that WAS spam 😉 . That seems like a waste of time… if I can’t read it, how would I buy anything from them? 😛

DogP

I haven’t played Gundam in years, but what was in JP? Just the story, right? I don’t remember having any problems playing it, though I didn’t find the game that fun either (it was WAY too easy IMO).

DogP

Yeah… I tried that a while ago, but it didn’t work out that great. You have to use a strong adhesive (like epoxy) to keep the two halves together, and it doesn’t really keep itself centered. The pins on the USB connector also aren’t equally spaced, though it’s close enough that it’ll work.

But if you’re wanting to make your own connector, a 0.1″ two row header works better (an extra pin on each side keeps it from getting off-center), although you have to bend the pins inward a little bit (the flex pins are what I liked about the USB type). I did try finding just that type of pin in a different assembly, but didn’t find any standard type, especially in a two row type.

DogP

I’ve thought about it, but never really saw much point in it. Typically if I want RB w/ link it’s for dev… so I did RB<->RB. Since almost nobody else has a VB<->PC cable, I figured there wasn’t much point in it unless I wanted it (which I haven’t had a need for yet).

But yeah, it’d definitely be possible.

DogP

I can take one when I get home from work… you might have to remind me though, since if the thread doesn’t have a red envelope, I might totally forget 😉 .

DogP

Heh, yeah… I was gonna do gmail, but I wanted a short name, like dogp@, and it wouldn’t let me do that. And I don’t want to give out a temporary one and change it in a couple months and have to keep checking a bunch of different ones. I figured since I’ve got my own domain name, I should be able to have any name I want at projectvb.com, but my host is kinda crappy (but free), so I haven’t gotten that taken care of yet.

DogP

I actually have made quite a few just soldering wires directly to the PLCC package, and yeah, it fits without cutting just fine. I think I may have had to thin the case a little bit (scrape away some of the inside of the case with a dremel), but it looked fine on the outside. The PCB is definitely the way to go if you can, but for one or two, it’s not too bad to solder them by hand (after I did a few, it took about an hour to build each).

DogP

I’d personally get a Willem EPROM programmer, and some 29F040 chips. I recently picked up a GQ-4X from http://www.mcumall.com/ and am really happy with it… all my other programmers have been parallel port programmers, which isn’t as convenient since I do most dev on my laptop now (which doesn’t have a parallel port). I’m sure any of the other Willem programmers from there would be fine too.

You should be able to find the chips in medium quantities for reasonable price on ebay… I’d definitely stick with Flash over EPROMs though, so you don’t have to worry about getting a UV eraser (plus they’re MUCH more convenient).

DogP

LOL… okay, I’m going with US Mario’s Tennis. They got a pretty good price for a common like that, I should get to pulling stickers off all the crappy games and sell them as “unknown, from an antique dealer” 😉 .

DogP

Yeah, I’m here… it’s easiest to PM me here for now, I switched ISPs but still haven’t gotten my email situation totally figured out yet.

DogP

Heh, that’s actually pretty cool… I’ve never seen that game before, but it actually looks like it might be kinda fun.

DogP

Ah… cool, glad that helped.

DogP

It’s been a while, but I think I remember coming across a problem like that, and it ended up being related to something in the libgccvb.h not being declared volatile… but I could be imagining things, or remembering something else. I’ll try to look into it when I get a chance.

DogP

I also noticed that… here’s a screenshot of it.

DogP

Attachments:

1. 

   weird.jpg
   

No… the VB isn’t really meant to do any PCM… I’m basically rigging it to do 4-bit PCM by giving it a DC waveform and manually adjusting the volume to create the sample. There’s no DMA and you can’t queue up a “wav file”, so you have to use CPU cycles to manually write each sample. Because of that, it’s really only good for effects like intro speech and stuff, when you don’t care about CPU time.

The VB audio is meant to play similar to a MIDI, where you give it a waveform and a frequency and it plays that note until told to do differently (or if an effect like ramp/sweep/modulation/etc is used).

DogP

Heh… if you guys are interested, I’ve got hundreds of “unknown mystery VB games” ;).

DogP

That looks really good… nice find!

DogP