32Mbit reprogrammable cart coming soon. Stand alone like FlashBoy.
Schematic is about 90% done at this point. I’d be in layout already if I wasn’t working on a surprise feature. Hang tight.
This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by mellott124.
Yamagushi wrote:
With Flashboy no longer being produced, I think most people would welcome any solution. Wouldn’t hurt to have two tiers, a cheaper and a more expensive option. I’m guessing Multiboy32 will be pretty pricey and it might turn a lot of people off, having a cheaper simple option like a Flashboy might help expand the market for homebrew. Could do a Flashboy32 and a Multiboy32.
That was about what I was thinking as well. It could be cheaper. It’s also a good in between engineering wise and would be faster to develop. I doubt I’d ever be able to name it FlashBoy32, though. Although that would be the most logical name. I was thinking HyperBoy32 for obvious reasons. Or just HyperBoy.
mellott124 wrote:
What about an intermediate step? Not a full MultiBoy 32 but something like a multislot Flashboy? No on screen game selection but dip switch or usb selection of games? 8 slots or so of 32Mbit. The development would be much shorter and I could possibly pull it off while studying. What are people’s thoughts? Just an idea at this point.
As someone who doesn’t have a Flashboy but really would like a way to play homebrews (on the VB) that sounds great. As long as you think you’ll be able to balance your studies with the development of a “multislot Flashboy” I’m all for it.
Sing me up for one! 😉
Ok I’ll think about it. Maybe call it MultiBoy Lite. Or just MultiBoy to distinguish it from the 32 version I announced.
What about an intermediate step? Not a full MultiBoy 32 but something like a multislot Flashboy? No on screen game selection but dip switch or usb selection of games? 8 slots or so of 32Mbit. The development would be much shorter and I could possibly pull it off while studying. What are people’s thoughts? Just an idea at this point.
Still alive but definitely paused. I’m back studying again. I was entertaining the possibility of having someone else pick up the project and continue with it but haven’t had time to pursue it further.
boye wrote:
mellott124, I feel that the best way to pull this off in the foreseeable future is to use the VB itself as a cart port and HID, and a separate box that plugs into the link cable port that does the actual programming.
Cool idea but it would be very slow compared to the current programmer. The link port is 250kHz at best. You’d also need a boot loader in every cart as the VB runs off the cart code.
A few more motherboards have become available if anyone wants me to build a programmer in a regular case.
It’s been just over a year for this project. Hard to believe. So please find attached the design files for the VB mini case for my programmer.
These were designed in TinkerCad. At one point I was thinking of modifying these files to house a Raspberry Pi for a software VB console. Then later was thinking of modifying it for a VB motherboard to use with the Furrtek video out mod for a hardware VB console. Not going to do that anytime soon so maybe someone else can.
You’ll probably want to reference this page with the part names to assemble one:
I wanted to give an update since its been awhile. The MultiBoy 32 is still on the list to be worked on. I got sucked into another project much deeper than I was expecting and its been taking all of my spare time. I haven’t ordered the prototypes yet for development. I hope to place the order in the next few months as my other project wraps up. Currently the prototypes are looking like this summer now with ‘production’ units coming months after that.
I am reading this forum, as well as all emails that come in.
Splain wrote:
Same, I’d front the cost. But I recognize that there doesn’t yet exist a working prototype of the mulitboy32, correct? So is this just a matter of cost and time? Or is there a real possibility that this won’t actually pan out?
There’s risk in any new design. The plan is to do a small (10 unit) prototype run first for full development and then go and build the rest. However pieces of the MultiBoy32 already exist in my VB mini programmer and reprogrammable carts. The new thing for MultiBoy is combining them into a single cart and having on-screen game selection. I built my VB mini programmer and reprogrammable carts knowing that eventually they would morph into the MultiBoy32.
At this point it’s more a matter of time and cost along with some new development risk for combining and adding new features. It’s managable risk and why I developed other products before this one.
Posting a summarized email that I sent out to interested people here on the main thread as well. This thread will be where the most recent updates are posted.
I still haven’t pulled the order on the initial prototype build. Funding didn’t come in as expected.
I’ve always used current and past projects to fund the next project, but MultiBoy 32 is on a larger
scale technically and cost wise. There has been a lot of units requested. So currently I’m
considering what options I may have to keep things moving forward. I’m considering things like
Kickstarter. I’m open to any ideas or suggestions the community may have.
Otherwise keep your eye on this thread and my website page.
