Funny thing, over 10 years ago, the owner of the Jack Bros and Panic Bomber prototypes called me on my phone to ask me about the rarity of those. No idea where he got my number from. IIRC, we later also talked through PM and I bought a VUE-Debugger video output board from him through ebay.

BTW, there also was a prototype of Virtual Bowling, of which DogP had pictures on his site. He borrowed it from its owner alongside Faceball and a VUE-Debugger. It was just the final version with the debug menu enabled, though.

To clarify on the “FB+” and boxes topic:

Back when I was making them, the first 100 or so units of FlashBoy Plus came CIB and in official cartridge shells. Like the original FlashBoy, but in an updated box.

After Richard started handling everything by himself, the box got ditched and cart shells were 3D printed, in various forms. From that point, the product was called “FlashBoy+” instead of “FlashBoy Plus”.

I was still sitting on a big batch of box prints at that point, so I split these and sent them to some members of the community who sold them off to FB+ buyers who also wanted a box. speedyink posted the forum link above. I believe all boxes were sold off a while ago.

The original announcement post has some high quality images of the FlashBoy Plus box, BTW: https://www.planetvb.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=307

There’s an error in the video: UncleTusk and David Tucker are not the same person. Tusk has never done any homebrew and David hasn’t been active in many years.

Other than that: Sweet! Thank you for the nice review! Do you know yet which game you will cover next? I am looking forward to it.

RetroDan wrote:

What codebase will be used, or will there be bases for multiple languages? I’d love to be able to use my native C++ instead of dealing with the kludgefest that is straight C.

The VSCode extension is tailored for VUEngine, which uses C++ like syntax. But you can configure it to work with any other library instead, like libgccvb.

A VSCode-based successor to VBDE is currently in the works. It will be available for Windows, Linux and Mac. So if you can wait a few more weeks (or possibly months), we’ll have you covered. 🙂

The web server crashed every night at 3 am German time for the past few days. I think I have finally found and fixed the issue.

VmprHntrD schrieb:
You’re going to be waiting awhile, and you know if you combed through all his comments around so far you’d have those answers.

1) In theory yes, it would have the room including that game
2) Yes
3) No padding needed

Where’s the info coming from that padding is not needed? AFAIK this cart basically has Kevin’s Cart Programmer build-in, which does not support automatic padding yet in the latest firmware.

Thumbs up, cr1901!

Set up a page, I will later add your releases: https://www.planetvb.com/modules/tech/?sec=tools&pid=prog-vb

I just tried the flasher on Windows 10 with a FlashBoy Plus. I kept getting error messages:

“Error: hidapi error: Der E/A-Vorgang wurde wegen eines Threadendes oder einer Anwendungsanforderung abgebrochen.”

(Google Translate: “Error: hidapi error: I / O operation was aborted due to thread end or application request.”)

After I switched from USB 2 to USB 3, it worked just fine!

Great work, cr1901, thank you! That thing will be a nice addition to VBDE 2.0. In fact, we plan to release Linux and Mac versions as well, so a cross platform flasher was like a missing link. Being able to flash via the command line, without requiring further input, is a welcome bonus. 🙂

Any idea why Windows Defender SmartScreen complains about the app being unknown, and prevents it from being started on the first run?

(Issues created on GitHub)

Attachments:

1. 

   prog-vb-windows-defender.png
   

Good idea, HorvatM! So, according to the usercenter, 50 users own V. Bowling, 52 own V. Lab. Lists attached.

Attachments:

1. owners-vbowling.csv
2. owners-vlab.csv

Cool stuff! Thank you!

Levine91 wrote:
If I’m wrong, my apologies but there is an Mexico Club Nintendo magazine from July 95 on eBay that doesn’t seem to be scanned to the site.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/VIRTUAL-BOY/254053737844?hash=item3b26c86574:g:c9oAAOSw1WtboYAF:rk:2:pf:0

I’ve got scans of dozens and dozens of magazines, including this one, which I never got around to add to the site. (@___@;)

Hey,

if you end up making a tutorial series I would love to help. I had this idea of recording a stream in which I try to get something to work with your engine for a while.

Cheers

Looking at the votes so far, we’ll definitely have to create these tutorials next year. We’re pleasantly surprised to see that so many people are interested in learning how the engine works!

Good idea to collaborate on this somehow, let’s talk on Discord when you’re around!

I am super interested in seeing a Point N Click adventure game like Ambrosines Monster Manor. It’s what I’ve wanted since the first time I played a Virtual Boy.

You’re the only one so far to request a graphics adventure game, so it doesn’t look like this will make it onto the TODO list for next year. But on the other hand, an engine for this type of game should be fairly easy to build. Might be something to consider as the “simple sample game” we want to build in our upcoming tutorial series.

The graphics in Monster Manor look like they were rendered from scenes built in a 3D modeling program? I wonder if it would be possible to get the original files from the developers and do stereoscopic renderings…

Awesome, ElmerPCFX! I am glad these patches are finally out! I guess we now have a foot in the door for Linux (and possibly OSX) versions of VBDE. 🙂

Wait, the dumped ROM is over 16 MB? It’s heavily overdumped then, the ROM should be 2 MB if it’s Bound High.

2 MB would also be the right size to flash to the FlashBoy.

Try this tool to shrink the ROM: https://www.planetvb.com/modules/tech/?sec=tools&pid=shrinkvb

Do the dumped ROMs work on an emulator?

Woohoo, it’s happening! 🙂

We changed all the passwords, moved to a new server, switched to SSL, etc, after learning about the hack earlier this year. But since you only joined in August, EkriirkE, it seems likely that there has been another one. It’s not that surprising, unfortunately, since this site still uses an ancient, almost 20 year old CMS and I am afraid we’re stuck with it until I get around to finishing the new site I have been working on…

So for the time being, I can only advice you guys to be careful. Change your passwords to one you only use on this site. If you’re signing up for a new account, set up a new email just for this site, and, most importantly, ignore these scam emails, should you receive one! Those bastard are just trying to scare you, hoping that a few people will actually pay.

Now that’s pretty cool! I wish they had actual quantities, though.

That’s a nice one! It’s refreshing to see an elaborate and well-researched video about the Virtual Boy for a change. 🙂

I assume you have the “for display only” box in mind? Since it is the only box that exists for Mario’s Tennis, I don’t consider it a demo like the other listed ones are, so it can be found on the MT released games page: https://www.planetvb.com/modules/games/?r007ibu

I guess it would be worth a mention on the Demos page, though.