jrronimo wrote:

oooh, nice thinking. I’ll be very curious to hear if this works — I’ve got lots of everything required laying around.

Thanks, I’ll let you know if it works out! No time to finish up and test lately but I borrowed my friend’s Hyper Fighting cart so I should be able to soon

I’ve got quite the noodle itch myself. Someone on the other forum where I posted this (http://www.retromods.net/viewtopic.php?f=25&t=535&p=7271#p7271) has a good theory that it relates to the reset switch and the CIC security chip…like modding it this way results in a full system reset instead of just the game. Something like that.

I’m wondering if this was a store demo unit, and somebody added these wires as some kind of remote reset.

Better pics…

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[HP Lovethrash]

I’m working on an updated and better version of the cable. This time I’m taking apart male USB plugs for the connector. Each USB has 4 pins, facing two of them together works pretty well since the pin spacing is almost exactly right for the EXT port :). The two center USB pins aren’t spaced equally compared to the outer ones, but it doesn’t seem to affect this project.

After peeling the black plastic casing off each plug, the silver shielding underneath should be removed as well. This leaves the actual cable attached to the little white plastic thing where the 4 pins terminate. After Dremeling away some of the excess plastic, I managed to get each side spaced perfectly to fit snugly into the EXT port.

This time I’m soldering 8 wires from the plug to a standard ethernet jack. The pictures show my first one, I just need to put heat shrink tubing over the electrical tape and add something to make the USB pieces wide enough to fill the EXT port. I figure using ethernet cable will allow for more flexibility since you can get a longer or shorter one as needed. Then, making a special ethernet to USB attachment means this same link adapter could be used for online play. I’ll upload more pics as it develops…

• This reply was modified 9 years, 8 months ago by HP Lovethrash.

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What does a white box VB (with box of course) go for these days, might put mine up for sale. Haven’t seen one available in years…

I am pretty sure a white box system came up for under $300 buy it now within the last few months. I almost bought it because I had never seen one before and it seemed like a great deal…it was probably something $250 or less to be honest. Maybe i should have picked it up, but I didn’t really know what the white box was for at that point and couldn’t justify the price tag for it :p

Oh yeah, LocLine…that’s what the one I saw was made from. It had the URL for this place printed on it so I went there first, but I’m sure you’re right that it would be cheaper to buy the bendable tubing and just make my own.

So what was left on your 1.7-lb Virtual Boy then?? Just the shell, the main board and the lenses? See, I have no concept of weight! Either way, the LocLine stuff I was looking at seemed like it would take more than two pounds to bend it…

I wish I could be a high roller and donate some Bound High carts to get some of these visors, but I’ll probably stick with Mario’s Tennis as well

This looks great, is it an “existing” mod or something you worked on yourself? I checked out the link to another forum post but haven’t heard of this project already otherwise. Maybe I’m just out of the loop though.

Is that some kind of special serial label? Or do all Japanese VBs have that?

Good call on repurposing some existing cases. I feel like I was at some store like WalMart or Bed, Bath and Beyond and saw some sheet/comforter sets that came in square clear plastic things. Not those flimsy clear bags with a zipper, but an actual “box” reminiscent of game protectors you can get on eBay. If that is true, I’m sure a full VB system box would fit in one.

Otherwise, maybe somewhere like The Container Store where you can buy all kinds of storage devices would have what you need.

I’ve also looked into UV protectant film you can place over box protectors, since I have a very sunny apartment and don’t want all my stuff just rotting away in a closet out of view :). Art supply stores or museum supply places sell this…

Dreammary wrote:
That’s a great design and it’s awesome to read that you got it functioning completely.

Heh, nobody was more surprised than me when it worked

KR155E wrote:
In the meantime, I am going to create myself a private copy just in case and do a little news post about it and link to the article on FastCompany.

That’s a good idea, make sure we preserve the facts just in case their webhosting company skips town and the article disappears.

It was a very well-written article, there were some misconceptions cleared up for me since I didn’t know Yokoi planned to leave the company anyway. It’s a shame that we lost Mr. Becker too, since I don’t live very far from the city where his company was located. I’ll be sure to look for FaxView prototypes the next time I go to lawn sales around the area…

I also wanted to add that when looking for something which might be converted into a link cable, I noticed that a USB plug has four pins in roughly the same spacing/layout as one side of the EXT port. If anyone wants to try making cable, you might consider taking the metal casing off a couple USB plugs and finding a way to sandwich the EXT pins between the two USB pieces…might try it myself anyway :). Try holding a USB plug up next to the EXT port in bright light and you’ll see what I mean.

Lester Knight wrote:
that is a pretty cool project. how was 2 play SFII? any slow-down or other issues?

Thanks! It was great actually- besides a few quick sessions here and there, I’ve never really played Street Fighter at all if you can believe it. But from what I remember, the gameplay mechanics were spot-on. Versus mode functioned flawlessly as far as I could tell. The only issue was that one side of my link cable (the one without the silver DB9 casing in the pics) would cut in and out a little bit. This is because when I fixed the two send/receive lines, I had to strip some very thin wire without tools, then twist the connections back together carefully. If the VB was moved at all, sometimes there would be a minor graphic glitch.

Everything worked great once my cable was cooperating though…things will be fixed once I solder things back up properly. That, and when I make the connection with the EXT port more snug. For some reason my test VB at home gripped the cable much tighter than the two that me and my friend were using. Not sure why, since we can assume that most EXT ports have the same amount of wear and tear ==> none :).

That sounds interesting, maybe you will be able to buy a multipack containing all released/unreleased VB games to play on it. I’m a little out of the loop, is this the first mention of a new system from them? From what I’ve heard, the WiiU was doing poorly mostly due to lack of 3rd party support but maybe the system’s sales just aren’t enough either.

That is weird looking alright…those silver holes almost look like a threaded spot for something to screw in. With the bottom piece being so flat, I wonder if this unit was attached to some prototype tabletop stand. I’m not familiar with the store display units, did they have this kind of special arrangement on the bottom?

Also, is the part of the foam visor that should go against your forehead missing? It almost looks that way.

Thanks Thunderstruck, that was surprisingly easy to understand- especially for a coding dummy such as me :). It sounds like a puzzle game in and of itself.

“Vertical Force is better than Water World, but equally (obviously) unfinished. Insmouse has to be around the worst, though I’ve never been able to play “Gundam”.
”

–Interesting, I don’t think I’ve heard that before about Vertical Force. What about it seemed unfinished? It’s been a while since I played, though I do remember it being fairly short…a few more levels would have upped the challenge somewhat.

Even though I loved the idea/look of Insmouse, I was very disappointed in the gameplay. The non-fluid movement and the weapon system might almost be tolerable for me if not for the time limit. That just makes it a chore, in my opinion of course O:)

“Jack Brothers” is excellent, so is Space Squash — I never understood why it was “Japan Only” — the play is very good.

— I wonder if they would have localized Space Squash later on? Seems like some games used to take years to make it over here. An updated North American version with a vs. mode sounds pretty sweet.

What kind of work goes into making a level editor for a VB game anyway? I assume it’s much more difficult than whatever I’m imagining :p

Still, it would amazing if one day we had such editors for every game.

I wanted to add, besides Bound High or Dragon Hopper, what do you think would have been the game to really define the system and make it a success? This can be a canceled game or one that wasn’t even planned. Personally I agree with those who say Metroid or Mega Man…both of them would look pretty good in red and black, and I honestly think they would make better use of a 3D capability than another Mario game.