VBmills wrote:
Great video as always Roland.

Kevin, fantastic work on getting these link cables out in the open. Have you considered selling these as a DIY kit? It may help you save time instead of building them yourself.

I have thought about it but don’t want to have to do service calls/emails when people can’t assemble them correctly. For now I’ll keep building them so I know it’s done correctly. Maybe in the future…

FYI, I’ve had trouble accessing PlanetVB for the last 4 days. I’ve been setup with a proxy so that now I can load the website.

OK, all batch 4 cable orders are out.

I haven’t placed the order for new parts yet. Was just too busy with current cable builds. I’m planning on placing the orders today. I’ll order a few extras but like I said, I’m taking a break after this to work on other projects.

Should start shipping cables about 2 weeks from now. That may be about 1 week longer than what I previously stated for some buyers. Falling a bit behind.

10 link cables shipping out tomorrow. Didn’t get the whole batch done this weekend but I should be able to get to the remaining ones in the next couples of days.

I’ll be placing an order for batch 5 cable parts in the next few days. If you’re on the fence about getting a cable then this would be the batch to get your order in. After batch 5 I’m going to take a break from cables for a while. I want to focus on some other projects and quite frankly just need a break from making cables. I’ve hand stuffed 224 USB pins so far!

Glad you like it.

The cable is cat6 Ethernet cable. If you look closely at the text on the cable you’ll see it written on there.

speedyink wrote:
^^ Those cross eyed photos worked MINT for me!

Just received my cable today. Unfortunately I don’t have two flashboys or two hyper fightings yet, so I can’t test yet. The quality is nice however, and it inserts into the Virtual Boy very smoothly. No it’s not actually Nintendo quality, which should be obvious by everyones pictures, but that’s not a fair comparison anyway. For a one man homebrew project, this is a great quality cable. I do like the material chosen for the 3D printing, the texture is nice and grippy, and helps tone down the 3D printed appearance. The connectors feel nice and solid. The cable itself is definitely solid and the color choice is ideal. It has kind of an industrial style, and similar in flex to an ethernet cable.

All in all very nice job Mellott, thank you for picking up this project and finally delivering a proper Link Cable to the community. Finally, we can experience one of the key features Nintendo should have included at launch, 22 years later!

I like this one too. Very clean and should print well except maybe for the small Virtual Boy text on the controller. Nice job!

StereoBoy wrote:

KR155E wrote:
These are great, StereoBoy, minimal and very readable! I like the bottom middle one best. I think you should add a black outline to the controller in the front like you did to the ones in the top row images, so the two controllers can be better distinguished from each other.

THX! Think you’re right – another black line is a good idea 🙂
Maybe we should make a new thread for link cable logo layouts …? 😉

New parts came yesterday so cable builds for batch 4 starting tonight.

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OK, got the reverse direction working now too. I think I have the solution for over the internet as well using port forwarding software. Doesn’t look too difficult.

Otherwise I just need to nicely package up the USB end. The setup requires a Player1/Player2 switch to be set appropriately. I need to design a case as well for the USB end.

I’ve read TeleroBoxer also writes out to the gamelink port. Has that rom been combed over? The only other one mentioned was Mario Tennis so good chance Teleroboxer has multiplayer??

KR155E wrote:
Since I found the others to not be very readable at small sizes, here’s another take at a GameLink logo.

Nice. I like that one. I agree some of the others won’t print well at the VB cart size.

Thanks everyone for posting about their cables. Glad people are liking them.

All batch 3 cable orders are out. Appreciate the patience as they go out. Demand has been stronger than I expected. 20 cables have been built and shipped out so far. Batch 4 is already sold out and will be 15 cable builds. I’ll keep going as long as people are interested.

I’m also very glad the cables are motivating other work. That’s what I had hoped it would do. Looking forward to what comes next!

thunderstruck wrote:

M.K. wrote:
So first I modified an emulator to to help me identify data and code sections. Then I spent a while playing the game to collect enough data and to identify unused code paths. Next, I wrote a disassembler that was able to disassemble the whole game by using the collected data.

That’s a cool approach. I’m wondering if other games have more unused code as well. Faceball might have multiplayer code hidden somewhere after all.

It is pretty crazy that you managed to reactivate the multiplayer code. I played it with my wife for a bit. I noticed some balls getting lost right when they were over the net though. But maybe that was just my link cable or something.

Hi Thunder,

Shouldn’t be the link cable. It would probably stop the game or you’d loose control completely.

Kevin

[mellott124]

I couldn’t resist. Here’s my version. The graphic design was done by another PlanetVB member.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 9 months ago by mellott124.

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Quick update. Last of the batch 3 cables will go out this weekend. There was a delay in the batch 4 part order due to a glitch in their system. Parts are due mid next week so next batch of cable builds will start next weekend. Apologize for the delay. If anyone has any questions send me an email or PM. Thanks!

Enjoy Mario Tennis 2 player!!!

I’ve been playing 2 player with my daughter. Whole new game! Thanks. I’m glad we have another major title now for 2 player. Amazing work!

The cables that were built this weekend are packed up and going out in the mail tomorrow. I wasn’t able to finish them all but everyone involved has been emailed.

If you didn’t receive an email then you’re in the 4th batch, as you should have been initially told. I’m ordering parts for those cables after this message and should be able to start building them next weekend.

Nice job!

Latest parts just came in. I’ll be building tonight and through the weekend to try to get everyone their cables.

I am out of town Monday and Tuesday so some may slip into the next week but I’ll do my best to not let that happen.

Contacts are USB pins. You have to design around a specific part number because the back ends are not all the exact same size or length depending on the housing. I chose one that pulls apart easily enough so they could be salvaged for making the link cables. Takes 2 USB connectors to make a single link cable end.

MineStorm wrote:
Sorry, I meant the contacts inside the connector.

Completely custom. Modeled the connector from scratch based on the port on the bottom of the VB and from pictures of the VUE-004 cable online.

Then 3D printed in different materials and iterated on design until it worked the way I wanted it.

MineStorm wrote:
I’m very interested to know what you used for the connectors.

Salvaged or custom made ?

I doubt you’d ever see homebrew physical carts at $30. That’s close to the material cost.

akumie wrote:
I would not mind paying up to $30 for homebrew games on cartridge but I am never going to pay the insane ebay prices https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_odkw=virtual+boy&_osacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=p2045573.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xvirtual+boy+homebrew.TRS0&_nkw=virtual+boy+homebrew&_sacat=0