You’ve got a buyer right here if you’d be ok shipping to Canada. What were you looking to get for yours?
I’ve been meaning to get a Flash Boy Plus, but a donor cart is required and the only spare I have is Galactic Pinball, feels wrong to let one of those die.
I prefer to angle the VB forward so that the displays are facing upwards. Then I just lean forward and rest my hands with controller on the table in front of the VB. This is bar none the most comfortable method. One of these days I need to get a picture for visual reference.
skcin7 wrote:
Hi, I have a full set of USA released Virtual Boy games, including the 2 distribution “Not For Resale” demos in my collection. I know the ROMs already exist and are easy to find on the Internet. US federal copyright law allows you to make back copies of media you own. Technically in order for backup copies to be legal, you need to make the backup copy yourself, not download them. So I’d like to do that if possible. Plus, I just think it would be fun dumping the games to ROM format and learning how that process works.
So my question is – how can I dump a Virtual Boy game I own to ROM format to back it up on my computer? Are there any known or recommended methods, and what hardware should I own in order to do this?
Thanks for any help or insight you may provide.
Just so you know, assuming the dumps in question are bit-for-bit accurate and no copier headers are involved, there’s no technical or legal difference between backups you make or ones you download off the internet.
The US SNES uses a custom DC barrel jack connector. It’d be a lot easier to simply use a SFC AC adapter, or something compatible with it (Famicom, Genesis, Master System, JPN Virtual Boy etc).
I haven’t made such an adapter because I think the VB controller is plenty good on its own. In fact, I’d rather see the VB controller on other consoles.
I tested that Elite ROM in Nestopia and on the Everdrive FC. Although the header says NTSC and the opening crawl says “NTSC Emulation”, it’s still basically the PAL version, complete with partially off-screen visuals and graphical corruption. That’s probably why nobody’s made reproductions with it.
same here, I can attest to playing a real, fully working VB is a lot different than just looking at screenshots. The VB is actually one of my favorite Nintendo consoles. It was both a gamers console and extremely innovative, rather than the Wii where it was geared more towards what would become the smartphone crowd.
The easiest way around different ROM versions is to look at the Nintendo product code on the cartridge label (the answer to most technical questions across Nintendo consoles).
VUE-VWCJ-USA/JPN
Notice how both Wario Land cartridges share the same product code, VWCJ. The J indicates a Japanese ROM. WC means Wario Land. V means Virtual Boy.
VUE just means Virtual Boy and the USA or JPN at the end of the product code means which region the game is packaged for (unrelated to ROM origins).
Conversely, look at Virtual League Baseball. VUE-VVPE-USA. The E signifies that this is an English ROM, which is obvious since the game is significantly different in Japanese.
Uh no, what pretty much everyone agreed upon in other threads was compensating homebrewers for their coding efforts, not necessarily the production costs. Group funded homebrews would be awesome, even if they were distributed as ROMs. The flash boy is the most economical distribution method, just get everyone to buy a flash boy and then every homebrew game can be played easily.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to conclude that financial incentive (and maybe a little teaming up) could encourage more advanced homebrews. There’s actually a surprising amount of demand for new VB carts despite the theoretically small number of owners and collectors.
Star Fox, even just a straight port of the original would be fine. I’d love to see the Virtual Boy run that game and show people how it’s actually more powerful than the SNES, which had to use a graphics accelerator to render polygons, which the VB can do by itself.
It’s stunning how much color can twist one’s perception of graphics and computing power. (coughSegaGenesiscough)
Haha yeah I get it now, seems strange to us westerners that you can begin counting with your middle finger in Japan. It still looks like she’s giving an offensive gesture though, look at how she holds her hands.
RunnerPack wrote:
I beg to differ. Since the current draw is small, and it goes to zero while you’re using the VB, I think a rechargeable would work nicely. It’s good that (AFAIK) only a Li-ion cell would physically fit, though; the “memory effect” of other chemistries (I’m lookin’ at you, NiCd! ;-)) would ruin it after a few low-drain/top-up cycles.
Now that I think of it, though, maybe a supercap would be even better… But then you would probably have to run each cart for a few seconds every so often. Either that or find some pins that would fit, and make a rack that you can plug all your games into that supplies them with +5V 😀
Or you could just install a CR2025 (or 2032) and not have to worry about it for 20+ years.
I may love the Virtual Boy, but not to the extent I’d get an R-Zone. Those Tiger G&W clones were never very good and the R-Zone doesn’t sound any better.
If you remove the Star Fox name from an unofficial port/remake of Star Fox 1 on VB, it might restrict the copyright issues to Argonaut Software, is all I’m trying to say. Nintendo might own their games now, it’s hard to say.
