SirGuntz wrote:
The only delicate part of the stand is the medallion. The lock and the bottom part of the VB are very solid, they won’t break.

That’s not entirely true. I have a stand with a broken clip I got with a 2nd-hand VB, and I know of other people with the same problem. In fact, there’s even an entire thread about replacing them.

@Chris: I’m wondering what you thought the word “PUSH” molded into the clip meant… 😉 Anyway, when in doubt, check the manual!

That sounds pretty cool, and a great use of 3D printing. I can’t wait to see your design!

The next logical step would be to completely repackage the “guts” of the VB, which would allow you to:
1) Reduce the total weight by using less plastic, and
2) Distribute the weight better by placing the parts that don’t need to be in front of the user’s eyes (e.g. the amplifier and speakers) behind the head to act as a counterweight.

Greg,

After I read your post, I took another look at gcc 2.95. I found out the latest 2.x version is actually 2.95.3, and that there were a few changes that seem to be worth having. There is also a binutils 2.10.1, but I couldn’t find a list of what was changed. I got the code for those versions (actually, I got 2.95.2/2.10 and their respective patches) and applied the v810 patches (it only took a bit of manual tweaking).

I haven’t compiled them yet, because I wanted to look into what it would take to add the NVC-specific instructions from M.K. and/or blitter’s 4.x patches, as well as the register alias stuff blitter mentions here (hopefully without causing the same slow-down and “jal” problems).

I also need to gather every linker script and crt0 version, and find out which of each to use (or whether to make a new version of either) to make sure things like interrupts work correctly.

Chaz wrote:
Makes my head hurt trying to imagine how they could’ve produced multi-color images with LED raster scans on vibrating mirrors. Although, if VB had been a success, Nintendo would have figured out how.

If I were doing a full-color version, I’d use dichroic prisms (such as are used in LCD projectors) to combine three LED arrays into, essentially, a single column of full-color LEDs. After that, it’d be the same as the existing VB, timing-wise.

Personally, it’s not the monochrome part that bugs me (and I fully understand the reasons for it), it’s the low bit depth. If it had even one more bit per pixel, the graphics could be a lot better. Of course, 4bpp would just be that much better, and 8bpp would blow your mind! 😀

I watched the Tested.com review of both from GDC, and I gather that Morpheus is a direct clone of the Rift, with a bigger budget thrown at the product design side of it. I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony had a spy back the KS just so they could get access to the “behind-the-scenes” development info. It uses the PSEye (or whatever it’s called on the PS4) for the head tracking (using visible LED’s rather than the Rift DK2’s IR ones), but knowing Sony, they won’t be passing the savings on to the consumer.

If I get either, it’ll definitely be a Rift, just so I’m not locked down to a single platform. But I’ll most likely just wait till prices come down on smallish, low-latency, HD screens and cobble together my own version from eBay bits. I’m actually more interested in the CastAR system.

Congratulations, M.K. *virtual handshake* 😉

The (most practical) methods for stereoscopic display on a PC, from least to most expensive:

* Free-viewing – This doesn’t require any extra hardware. You just have to learn to focus on a different image with each eyeball. It can be pretty fatiguing, though. Not recommended for prolonged viewing.

* Anaglyph – You can use any colors, but if you can get them, I suggest using Green/Magenta (although the one, cheap, Chinese pair I found on eBay is pretty much useless, so caveat emptor). You can get anything from cheap paper ones (usually for free or extremely cheap) on up to ones with fancy plastic (or even metal) frames and “diopter corrected” lenses.

* “Assisted free-viewing” (a term I just made up) – This method is similar to free-viewing, only you use some kind of device to cause the (con/di)vergence of your vision. This can be done with mirrors, lenses, or other optics. There may be commercial products for this, but mostly I’ve just seen plans for homemade ones.

(Note: large gap in price here…)

* 3D-capable LCD monitor – This is the one I use. I have an Asus VG23AH, and I can’t recommend it enough. It’s a great general purpose monitor for the price (I paid around $200 last year), and the 3D uses the same cheap, polarized glasses you get at the movie theater (I have over half a dozen pairs, including the two that came with the monitor ;-)).

* A homemade 3D projector – ‘Nuff said 😉

* HMD – Oculus’ Rift is probably the best known, and you could probably make a clone of it for not much more than the above monitor, but the “real thing” is still $300 last I checked (and who knows what the lead time is). There are probably other models available, but the price is going to be up there.

Note: all of these are easily used with Mednafen (except, as Lester mentioned, the Rift requires that special version of VBjin for the best results). I/we can help you set it up once you decide on a viewing technology.

For the love of all that is red and full of 3D happiness, please read my PM before you attempt this!

HP Lovethrash wrote:
Last night, I tried using “>rominjector.exe gbemu.vb rom1.gb rom2.gb”

You shouldn’t give the output ROM the same name as the “empty” emulator. After a quick look at the code, the injector doesn’t seem to make any check to prevent overwriting the original. (@MK, you probably should have stuck with the name “gbemu.bin” for the empty emulator binary.)

PM sent.

BTW, the displays are not “handed”. Any display PCB can be used for either the left or the right side, as they are all identical (well, there are certain physical differences between Japanese and U.S. displays, but they are all interchangeable).

thunderstruck wrote:
If I remember first grade art class correctly […]

You may be remembering correctly, it’s just that they taught you the subtractive mixing of pigments, and what you need to know (and what your diagram shows) is the additive mixing of light. In this case, the pigment in the filter can only subtract light. Since the VB is only producing red light, you can only make it dimmer, not change its color.

However, thanks to nanotechnology development, there now exist so-called “Quantum dots” which are able to absorb photons and re-emit new ones of another color. Eventually, it may be possible to get some of these and make a filter that can absorb the red light emitted by the VB’s LEDs and produce another wavelength that can either replace or mix with the red to produce another color. It will most likely be necessary to place them directly on the LEDs themselves, but changing the VB eyepieces will also be required to avoid absorbing the new color(s) of light.

Of course, if we’re talking about “the future” we might as well say that “someday” we’ll be able to make highly integrated semiconductors at home, in which case we could simply make replacement LED arrays of other colors as drop-in replacements for those in the VB…

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Thanks, Hedge! That truly means a lot!

L___E___T wrote:
I keep meaning to get the VB emulator up and running on Wii but haven’t gotten round to it. The VB is such a 2D powerhouse spec-wise, I don’t think I’d mind playing it in 2D so long as the games are playable.

If you have the component cable (or other high-quality output solution) you should try Green/Magenta anaglyph. The glasses are cheap (paper ones can be had for the price of postage, and even the fancy plastic ones are only $5-$10 depending on quality) and the quality is much better than the old red/blue kind.

Thanks for the in-depth analysis, thunderstruck.

thunderstruck wrote:

It seems like the enemies in the original are more agile though. I your version I usually have problems shooting at them as they are stuck on the outer sides of the screen and I can’t reach them there.

This is a known issue which will be fixed in the next release, but the work-around is to slow down and wait for them to move away from the wall before speeding up again.

Also it seems like there are more obstacles in the original and the player is forced to navigate through because of the agility of the enemies.

This is another fairly simple fix we didn’t quite have time to implement.

Did you consider putting in a bigger a variety of obstacles/enemies? I can see that it is the same in the original but after the second level the game starts feeling very repetitive as you basically do/see the same thing all of the time.

Due to the late start, we focused on getting as much of the original functionality done as possible before attempting to add more features. As it was, we had to leave out the helicopters, although the sprite is already there.

I’m not meaning to criticizes your game. I think it is great effort for 2 weeks of coding. Just wanted to throw in some ideas that might make it even better.

Thanks again! We welcome these and any other suggestions for improvements.

sandwich wrote:
[…] it’s just sticky stuff from when I was using duct tape. […]

Get some “Goo Gone”. It really works. I also use isopropanol to clean off the greasy feeling left by the Goo Gone.

BTW, pretty good job with the epoxy. Too bad it didn’t come in black 😉

Supergeon wrote:
Do you think I could purchase a brand new 28 pin FFC ribbon cable off of ebay and use that? Or does the VB use a special type, I can only assume it’s all copper so it just needs to make the connection.

If you can find one that’s .6mm pitch on one end and .8mm pitch on the other, and long enough, but not too long, please let us know about it!

[RunnerPack]

It’s a great concept, and well executed. Sadly, I have to give it lower marks due to the lack of diagonal movement – one fewer “else” statement would have made it so much better :/

EDIT: I decided not to single you out on the graphics thing…

• This reply was modified 12 years, 5 months ago by RunnerPack.

I never played the original, but I got most of the way through Jetpack Joyride on the PS3 (which is just a more complicated version of F-B). Your version is fun, but it has to be harder than the original.

Doo dee doodle-a deeeee! I solved puzzle 1 😀 Good job, Chris.

What kind of toothpaste are you using? (I mean, besides “mint” ;-)) The last time I tried toothpaste to polish something, it just fogged it up. Also, are you using any kind of tool, or just your hands and a cloth?