Just noticed, you put the wrong graphics up for this…

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GOLF-Virtual-Boy-USA-Release-Cartridge-AND-Manual-/200745128008?pt=Video_Games_Games&hash=item2ebd579048

And the reviews also show Mario Clash…

Sorry to hear the bad news, I hope everything works out for you and your family.

The MSRP in 2012 for the SRT-8 model starts around $46,000 USD, but somehow the price climbs a bit higher than that. And unfortunately no dealer will negotiate that price either.

The Challenger was originally around in the 1970s, but they stopped making them in the early 80s. I was not alive back then, and I was never interested in that car. But when Dodge reintroduced the Challenger in 2008 I instantly wanted one. Well, 4 years later and I finally got one!

Some numbers if you are interested…

Engine: 6.4L V8
Power: 470 HP (350 kW)
Torque: 470 ft-lbs (637 Nm)
0 to 60 MPH (0 to 100 kph): under 5 seconds
1/4 mile (0.4 km): mid-12 seconds
Fuel economy: 14MPG city, 23MPG highway (USA gallons)(6 city, 9.75 highway km/L)

After owning it for a little over 3 weeks, I really think I made the right choice by going with the car 🙂 I was really tempted to pick up a Ford Mustang (hadn’t decided which one), but in the end I felt the Challenger looked cooler and had a nicer interior.

…anyway, I really did not want the red stripes (sorry black and red fans), so I had them replaced with white…

I know it seems wasteful to buy a car with a stripe just to replace the stripe with a different color, but I did it that way for 2 reasons…

1) For some reason white is not an option in 2012

2) If I just bought a car with no stripe I would have had to wait 6 to 8 weeks

I should have probably just gone with silver, but I think the white looks pretty good. (the available colors for the stripe are silver, gray, red, black)

Attachments:

1. 

   front-white.jpg
   

2. 

   front-close-white.jpg
   

3. 

   back-white.jpg
   

No clock to the FPGA? And no platform flash to configure the FPGA (or are you planning on the PIC to do that)?? and no JTAG to debug the FPGA?

Why not use a CPLD rather than FPGA? Don’t have to load those so it would be up and running right away.

— Useless babbling —
I was planning on doing the same thing, except with Eclipse, but I guess I won’t have to do that anymore! (I have mixed feelings about Eclipse but it seems like all the embedded silicon companies are switching to it for their IDEs)

I am using Notepad++ at work right now, and it seems okay. I know there were a few things I did not like but can’t remember what specifically right now. Anyway, I just use it to view/edit code on Windows, never used it to manage a project or to launch tools.

I think my favorite IDE is the Qt IDE, but I do not know if you can easily set it up for non-Qt code. I know you can set a cross compiler, but it might not work ideally.
— End of Useless babbling —

— Somewhat relevant babbling —
I swear I was able to compile the compiler with mingw, but I can’t remember (it was a year or so ago when I tried). Anyway, if it is possible to compile it under mingw then you would not need to include any of the cygwin stuff.

Hopefully your collection of development tools includes a simulator (I am sure it will).
— End of somewhat relevant babbling —

— Thanks and bye section —
Glad to see you are working on this! Good luck, and let us know if you need any help!

– Matt

You are working too hard! I notice pretty much everywhere, you are misusing “if” statements. What I mean is this…

 // Your code
    if (StartGame>2) vbTextOut(0, 20, 11,"IMPORTANT:");
    if (StartGame>2) vbTextOut(0, 14, 12,"SCREW THE INSTRUCTION");
    if (StartGame>2) vbTextOut(0, 13, 13,"AND PRECAUTION BOOKLETS");
    if (StartGame>2) vbTextOut(0, 15, 14,"JUST PLAY THE GAME.");

So yes, you are right that after an if statement, it will execute everything until the ;. Well, usually that is. But the preferred way is to use {} braces (usually called “curly braces”). Then it will do everything in between the {} braces (unless you did something bad like a goto). So anyway, you can rewrite the code like this then…

 // Right way
    if (StartGame>2) {
        vbTextOut(0, 20, 11,"IMPORTANT:");
        vbTextOut(0, 14, 12,"SCREW THE INSTRUCTION");
        vbTextOut(0, 13, 13,"AND PRECAUTION BOOKLETS");
        vbTextOut(0, 15, 14,"JUST PLAY THE GAME.");
    }

Notice I can get multiple things done with the same “if” statement, and I don’t have to use “,” between each thing. (the comma is almost never used in C).

For safety, you should always use the { and } braces every time you use an if statement (or for(;;) or while())

Then, lets look at this next bit of code…

if (fighter==1) vbTextOut(3, 1, 0,"GI-ANT               ");
if (fighter==2) vbTextOut(3, 1, 0,"BEHE-MOTH            ");
if (fighter==3) vbTextOut(3, 1, 0,"RUMBLEBEE            ");
// and so on until 8, but let's limit the scope to just 3 for now

The problem with this is that if “fighter == 1” then you know “fighter == 2” cannot be true, yet you still check it. This just wastes time. One way is to use the “else” statement along with “if”. Here is an example…

if (fighter==1) {
    vbTextOut(3, 1, 0,"GI-ANT               ");
} else if (fighter==2) {
    vbTextOut(3, 1, 0,"BEHE-MOTH            ");
} else if (fighter==3) {
    vbTextOut(3, 1, 0,"RUMBLEBEE            ");
} else {
    // If you want to do something when none of the above
    // is true, you can put it here.  let's just leave it
    // blank to match your original intent.
}

That is better, because if fighter == 1, you do not check the rest. But if fighter == 3, you still check first if fighter == 1, then if fighter == 2 before finally checking if fighter == 3. Bummer.

Another alternative in a case like this is the “switch” statement. This is very similar to the if/else example, except it is a little bit easier to read. It also can have performance gains, but it is more limited than the if/else statement. Either way, check out the example…

switch (fighter) {
case 1:
    vbTextOut(3, 1, 0,"GI-ANT               ");
    break; // Never forget this break!  It lets the switch know you are done.
case 2:
    vbTextOut(3, 1, 0,"BEHE-MOTH            ");
    break;
case 3:
    vbTextOut(3, 1, 0,"RUMBLEBEE            ");
    break;
default:
    // If none of the above cases are true, you do this
    // It is okay to leave it empty, or just not include it
    // but good programming says you should always include one
    // Don't forget to use break, even if you leave it empty!
    break;
}

So basically, the first part (switch(fighter)) says “I want to do things based on the value of “fighter”. Then “case 1:” essentially means “if fighter == 1, do all the code up until the break; command”. You can also see the “default” at the bottom of the switch is the same as the last “else” in the if statement.

The downfall with “switch” is that it only checks if things are equal. You cannot have a case for “if greater than”

Anyway, back on track, try going through your code making the following changes…

1) Always use {} with if() statements
2) Use if/else statements to prevent tests that you know will fail
3) Use switch statements when you want to do different things based on a single variable having different values.

There is still much more that can be done to speed up the code and make it more readable, but try to master the above first before moving on to the next steps.

What are the differences between the two?

Galactic Pinball and Marios Tennis are the reasons I bought my VB back in the day, so it would be cool to get a prerelease. But if it’s pretty much the same thing, then the ROM wouldn’t really be worth much to me.

I don’t think the cartridge is anything special, the “property of nintendo” stickers you show were clear plastic but the cartridge you showed clearly was a paper label.

My guess is Blockbuster demo? And the sticker would have been the barcode label? I don’t remember seeing those stickers back when Blockbuster rented them, but that was a while ago and I was 9…

What are those purple booklets?

Anything from inside of the box? (like a reproduction of the cardboard holder or instruction book)

I have to appreciate the irony that you are asking people you don’t know for advice on someone else you don’t know 😉

But anyway, he is reputable. I have not bought a FlashBoy, but I have done transactions with him and everything went fine (the transaction I am talking about is I sent him some VB cartridges in exchange for a “Bound High” reproduction – well can it be a repro if it was never made?)

I won’t lie, I actually thought it was going to be named “Teleroboxer”

I wonder if Nintendo has called them up yet to pitch an official video game for the 3ds?

gunpeiyokoifan wrote:
I’m disappointed that the movie can’t be seen in theaters… in red and black!

Don’t worry, they ARE showing it in red and black! They just have a special going on right now that includes the rest of the colors free of charge! But if you don’t want the other (free!) colors, then you can snatch a pair of these for all the red-black glory you can imagine…

USPS is probably the easiest (or at least cheapest) at $14 USD (with free packaging materials).

Do the carts need dust caps?

Lester, if you are willing to spend $14 on a gamebit, why not spend $10 on a multimeter? It’s always good to at least be able to measure battery voltage.

Fwirt and GYF, I assure you cost is always the driving force. By using the battery with tabs, they also reduce their BOM from 2 parts to just 1, and they no longer need someone to install batteries in every cartridge which is a huge savings in itself. Plus, the way they did it is a better electrical connection and has no worries of having the battery somehow pop out accidentally. And with a clip, the solder joint is always under tension, so dropping the cartridge could break the connector (I had a key fob with a similar connector that would break after being dropped a few times, I had to fix it at least 3 times). And really, the battery provides 10+ years with no service, so who cares? It is only now that we are running into this problem.

But bottom line is always cost. Sad reality is that accountants run the world. Doesn’t matter if you are selling something for $1 or $10,000, saving money, no matter how small, adds up.

To be honest, I am not a gamer. I use my Nintendo Wii about 6 times a year, and last game I got was super mario brothers (the red case one). But I am a huge fan of technology, which is why I like the VB (and why I come to this site). But this would be mine…

1. My phone
2. Game Boy Color (My only Game Boy, I only use it for Tetris DX)
3. Nintendo Wii
4. Pac Man Arcade (now that I think about it, I should probably get one)
5. Virtual Boy
6. Dreamcast (in case you don’t count #4)

I was expecting to read something about part shortages due to what happened in Japan.

But anyway, when I heard you could adjust the level of 3d, I was wondering how you would be able to play a game that relied on 3d… I guess they won’t make any of those! Kind of lame :\

But I guess when you think about it, it doesn’t really change much. I mean, you could go a whole day with 1 eye closed and still do everything you normally do. Now granted in real life, you would be moving your head back and forth to get the depth perception. But anyway, I don’t think it will hold anyone back from making good and innovative games.

Don’t worry HT, the rest of us find it at least mildly amusing!

You could make a mirror box to fix any camera spacing issues.

The Rs and Cs seem kind of awkwardly placed… aren’t you supposed to put one right next to each ram chip and the uc? Or is that what C1 and C3 are for? (but nothing looks to be by “SAVE_SRAM”)

You should get your artist on and hand route the next one. Autoroute looks funny, and makes tracing a real pain (which will make debugging crappy). But at least there is no shortage in vias for test points!

Am I the only one who checked to see if it was April 1?