If you are cheap and don’t want to pay for the extra pcb, then you could make a “pull out ring” by bending a paperclip into a “C” shape and put two vias in the PCB to solder the paperclip to. If the PCB is at least the same size as a regular VB game then inserting should be easy, and the “pull out ring” would make removing the cart easy as pie. It would probably be easier than trying to grab onto a bare PCB, unless you routed a finger hole into the exposed PCB.
I don’t want to spend $10 just on packaging! A simple box would be fine.
But anyway, if you are keeping track, I would want black, one complete cable, and then 1 connector by itself. I foresee debugging with the link port becoming a reality in the future…
And actually, I would probably want my single connector to have a cable on it now that I think about it… it would make my life slightly easier.
You should talk to Chris about maybe setting up a special “limited edition” combo pack that had a flash boy plus and a link cable… Make fancy packing for that and charge a bit extra to cover the NRE costs.
Fwirt, I am sorry to hear about your programming conditions 😉
But anyway, in my opinion, the whole reason to have an IDE is for those who do not want to take the time to set up everything themselves, or who are unable to, or whatever. In college, for example, they don’t focus on makefiles or compiler configurations, you just use an IDE and accept all that background stuff as “magic.” So compiling is essentially just clicking an icon, no thought goes into what actually happens when you click the icon, or what has been set up behind the scenes. Anyway, because of this, I am sure there are a handful of programmers out there who can actually write decent C but who have never done anything outside of an IDE before.
Anyway, nothing would require you to use the IDE, it would just be handy for a smooth , out-of-the-box experience.
I think that an IDE would actually be very helpful. Seems like everyone uses Eclipse nowadays, so I would say we should make a customized version with gccvb fully integrated and release that as the “official” IDE. Then nobody even has to know about makefiles, or how to build gccvb, or anything like that. I don’t know how easy or hard it is to customize Eclipse, but I just know that it seems to be the popular kid on the block right now.
I think the ultimate goal should be to let someone who has never read anything about VB Programming to be able to compile and run a hello world program on their first try. No hassling with Cygwin or gathering files from everywhere, just download the IDE, install it, open the example program, hit compile, and run.
HorvatM wrote:
why do you use for(;;) instead of while(1)? Is there any advantage, or is it just a stylistic choice? I believe that the compiler will recognize 1 as being always true and will not generate code to test the condition.
You are right, no speed advantage with modern compilers. Plus, even if it was a dumb compiler and did use a few extra clocks, who cares?
But the real reason is because it is bad programming practice to check an expression that can only equate one way (for example, while(1) can only be true in this case). So if you check your code using something like a lint checker or misra rule checker, this would be flagged as an error.
If I get time to work on my project, this will help a lot. I only did very little VB programming, and that was a year ago probably, so this should help me get back into it quick. I am especially happy to see the timer demo, I have been meaning to look into timer interrupts for a while.
When you get to the time where you need a case, I can help you make the carts by hand. The biggest downside is it takes basically 1 day to make a mold and 15 – 30 minutes to cast a part, and it all has to be done by hand. But the advantages are most of the time you don’t have to do anything other than wait, your only hardware requirement is a microwave, and for one off parts it is relatively cheap (probably $5 to $10 per cart). Plus, you can make any color you want (even metallic colors like silver and gold, or transparent colors)
The easiest way to do it would be to cast the case right over the PCB, which would mean after it was cast, you could no longer get to the pcb. Yes I understand the needs of SD card access, this wouldn’t be a big deal. Don’t know if you would have to RTV the board or not.
I guess my biggest concern is that in my view, there is no way you can beat the flashboy price. Best you could probably do is match the price. Your pcb will be at least the same size, your carts will cost at least the same amount, and you have the same amount of parts to buy and solder onto the pcb. So where are you going to save money?
For sure make more FlashBoys. How many projects actually get done around here? Right now he is at the point where he doesn’t yet know what he is getting into. You would be able to get at least 2 batches out at your current pace before he would have anything ready to sell, and I think the market would be sad if they had to wait that long.
I bought a few to do this with but realized that there was no profits left. The difference between a broken and working VB is $10 or so which is the cost of shipping…
And with margins so small you would have to have a 100% success rate, which means if anything besides the ribbon cable connection was bad, you might actually lose money.
Basically I decided it was better to invest in stocks rather than VBs, and I think I made the right choice so far…
Lol @ taking apart db9… only way you will get that to work is with 30 gauge kynar wire…
My theory is that if simple glue held for the first 10 years then I am sure this method will last long enough…
You probably can get away with just repeating the wick part. I can assure you that you are close. The first one I did I had a similar problem, but it was just a quick fix and I didnt have the problem again. No reason to use a $300 soldering iron, or verify with a microscope or xray or whatever else, it is way simpler than you make it seem.
Trust me, I thought it was much more complex too. I spent way too much time researching connectors and trying to come up with other methods… but at the end of the day it just has to work, it doesnt have to be production quality. And this is coming from me, a profectionist!
Tinning does indeed matter when doing anything with an iron! You tin in order to aid in heat transfer. And heat transfer is sorta the name of the game…
It for sure sounds like your issue is only one display. So to remedy your problem, you need to first isolate which one as just discussed. Then, just start at the copper braid section and do that again. You really shouldnt need more flux or solder. And if that doesnt work, you could try the whole process over, but i suspect it will be fixed by then! Sometimes you need to redo it. Magnifying glasses dont help.
You are using 60/40 solder, right? And you tinned your iron before using the wick, right? Did you try to use extra flux (as in beyond that in the solder and wick)? You represent yourself as someone who would already have done all this, but never hurts to ask.
When I did it, I did not find it to be tough at all. Maybe you are being too clean and not using enough solder?
And soldering 0603 components is not necessarily similar to soldering fine pitch components 😛
I prefer making a programmer so that the flash cartridge is just flash memory and that’s it. Plug in the cartridge to the thing, copy your rom, and put in your VB. No case plastics are destroyed, and you can even dump your own games!
The best advantage is that you are minimizing cost if you want to have several cartridges. I think I have spent $30 on a single flash cart so far, $20 for the PCB and $10 for components. And my PCB is the same size as the VB PCBs, so in any volume at all it could be made cheap.
I don’t know how much the programmer would cost, but I figure I could have a complete set built for a similar price as a Flash Boy.
And as far as the flash, I know that I bought some Atmel flash that runs off of 3v, but allows you to run the IO at 5V. But those are already EOL… (AT49BV320D is the one I have)
Anyway, I have only recently started the project again. As my project sits, I have 1 assembled flash cart, a set of parts to make 1 more flash cart, and a crude breakout board for the flash cart. I am working on programming a micro for flashing the cart but stopped once I got the UART up and running (so yeah… I spent about a half hour so far on it…)
I usually sort all my games by the date I purchased them. But I am really not a gamer to be honest, I am more of a technology and innovation fan (so my game collections are small)
I am planning on making an air hockey game. The plans also include for link play and the ability to use a mouse.
I can’t think of anything else, but if I have time and can come up with another idea then I will come out with something else (highly unlikely I will have time…)
But first I want to make a cartridge programmer so I can try Bound High on an actual VB :). So my actual game is on hold until I get that done.
I bought mine back in August 1998 brand new at a store for $29.99. I was only 13 in 1998, so it took all the money I had on me! It was on the top shelf behind the counter, so I couldn’t tell how much it cost. I was glad I asked!
I was so excited to finally have a Virtual Boy, because I had rented one from Blockbuster when it came out, but it was way too expensive to buy at that time.
I remember after getting it, I called around the local stores that sold video game stuff, and found a store that had Teleroboxer and Warioland, for $12.95 each. So I bought one of each. Then some time later, I found a brand new Galactic Pinball online, so I bought that too (I can’t remember where, or how much). The two games I had rented originally were Mario Tennis and Galactic Pinball, so those are the two I had to have, and was happy once I finally got them.
Then I remember looking on ebay and seeing whole cases of Baseball for $10 or less, but I didn’t want that game, so I never bought it.
Flash forward to a year or so ago (a few months before I registered this account). I got out my Virtual Boy again, and the stupid thing had a glitchy screen! It had been sitting in climate control forever, but the thing still broke. So unfortunately, you have a display that needs repair. And it has nothing to do with how it was stored or anything. And it will only get worse with time, but the good news is it is an easy fix, and you have no physical damage to the unit! Just poor engineering on their part that can be easily repaired.
Anyway, after finding my broken VB, I got back into the spirit. I bought 3 more VBs (one came complete with the Blockbuster case!), a copy of Golf, V-Tetris, Nesters Funky Bowling, Vertical Force, Red Alarm, Mario Clash, and Panic Bomber.
