Put me down for at least $100; that should cover a couple of simple games (cough-Battlezone-cough), and I second the “starfox/zero-racers” idea. I’d love to have a game which exploits the “link cable”.
I’d be willing to donate again, if a second (good) game was proposed.
Battle zone. It was suggested I try to program it, using the provided tools; but I’ve been struggling to get a book finished. One “vanity press” offered me half-price expiring December 31st, so I bought in. I’m in the middle of a rewrite, and keep finding excellent new stuff!
DogP wrote:
I’ve got some glow-in-the-dark green PLA… I like the color, but as far as glowing goes, it’s pretty pitiful. You have to charge it with a VERY bright light, and then you can barely see it glowing in a dark room.
DogP
There must be a reason for that; maybe too many crystals compromise the strength.
I have a 100mW purple laser that will activate any glow phosphor; of course the 1000mW blue laser does most too. That would make a great pic of a VB with glowing parts, photographed in a dark room with a slow shutter…
Hedgetrimmer wrote:
3D printing glow stuff, yeah that’s cool, my wife will instantly think of a thousand items I should model and print. I may well be in touch with you 3D printing fellas for a favour……:)
Obviously the Virtual Boy is one of my “addictions”; glow-in-the-dark stuff is another. You should see my room right after the lights get turned off!
BTW, Hedgetrimmer — has your wife discovered Krylon Glow Paint? It’s hard to get here; as soon as they re-stock it sells out! I sprayed a whole shirt with it, can’t tell any difference.
Hedgetrimmer wrote:
I will most likely copy the side clip design, mine just bends one side, that looks way better with a sort of bridge with a small lug.
For the rest it will probably stay as we have designed it, we spent some time on a logo, which looks rad, so I’d like to keep that but the overall shape is similar.
I’m not really up for copying it directly, this is a re-make so I see no reason to try and be identical, its purpose is to be used, so fit for function is the key, with a little eye candy if we can.
Well, looking forward to buyable link cables! (Of course, two-player GAMES will also be nice!)
How rude of me, I didn’t thank you for posting the photos, those are great pics, thanks for sharing.
Ditto that — very cool find! Maybe in a parallel Universe the VB proliferated, as did the link cables.
DanB wrote:
I know many have been waiting for more info on this 🙂
Today I received the only known copy of the official Nintendo Link cable for the VB. Thought only to exist in dreams 😯
It came as part of my VUE-Debugger bundle.
Now if only we can stop dreaming of things like Dragon Hopper and Zero Racer (and Goldeneye)! Bound High was a dream come true, surely it’s only a matter of time…
It’s a very official-looking cable, made in the same style as the controller plug to look nice beside it. One side says “Nintendo” and the other says “VUE-004”. It is of decent length, about 58.5″ from tip to tip. It has the same type of ferrite core modules on each end as the controller cable has, and a snap-in mechanism on each side of the plugs to make the stay better inside the VB.
Are we going to conform the “aftermarket cables” to this design? That would only make sense; “official” cables for “official” (err, homebrew?) linked games! 🙂
The plugs are professionally molded, and you don’t do that to manufacture just one cable, so chances are there are more of these out there somewhere. On the other hand, it took 19 years for this one to surface, so who knows? 😛
They planned to make many more — but an aluminum mold is 1/4 the price of a steel one. It’s conceivable they made a couple hundred (surely more software developers had them), but all are locked up in whatever vault that also holds “DH” and likely a bunch of other prototypes. Maybe all but THIS one.
As long as I live I’ll never understand N’s attitude of CANCELING a system, never to be made again — so prototype games have ZERO detriment on profit margins — but then to be uninterested in customer’s loyalty with a “SCREW YOU NOT GONNA LET SLIP any stored items” (like prototype carts).
Just release whatever prototype games exist, the fan appreciation generates tons of good PR and future sales.
I’m still in awe over 3-D printing. Time was when the only way to make plastic parts was to fork over $8,000 to $20,000 for a mold (that was the price quoted to me for a small box for a device that protected buildings from neon signs that went “rogue”). But now we can print anything.
I just got an ad emailed to me for a PEN, you can draw things in the air and then print them in 3D! (Seems pretty obvious you can use the pen to trace existing objects and instantly create the design file…)
BTW, do they make plastic stock that glows in the dark? That would be cool to have some VB parts glowing brightly! I know, glow-RED would be coolest, but red pigments only glow a few minutes. Green and aqua glow all night!
I wanted those pens — didn’t think they’d go so high. I have dialup internet which is usually too slow to compete, so I had a snipe service bid for me; the pens were at $50, stuff usually goes for twice or less what the bid is an hour or two before ending.
At two minutes the price exceeded my snipe; so I entered a new bid — but I wasn’t logged in to ebay, darnit! It took over two minutes to load the page after clicking “log in”. Grrr….
Anyone have one of these pens they’d part with? Or a “lookalike”? There was one someone got from Germany, in blue and white; could be repainted…
* 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 ;-)).
Are you sure about that? I thought the 3D monitor/glasses approach was to use active electronic glasses (with alternating right/left images)? 😕
The polarizing filters at today’s theaters use circular polarization. I have some fancy 1950’s glasses with linear polarizers, each 45° from the horizontal (90° from each other of course), they don’t work with circularly polarized format. And a “polarized active shutter” can fight with LCD’s, which themselves work off of linear polarizing filters!
I can kinda understand linear polarization; electric fields at 90° away from magnetic fields, and crystal/polymer structure can be set up to absorb one orientation (for instance, horizontal) but pass the perpendicular (for instance, vertical). But circular — the new glasses use a linear polarizer with an additional layer. “Quarter Wave Retarder”, or “Birefringent” — which converts the linear into circular. Okay, so far so good; but how does it work, and how do ya’ get CLOCKWISE circular, and COUNTER-CLOCKWISE circular? 😕
With the old linear format you can tilt your head and both eyes then see both images (blurry). With circular polarization, you can turn your head fully 360° and the right eye still only sees the right image, left eye left image.
…although, if you really can turn your head 360°, we need you in the cast for the next Exorcist movie!!! 😯
If someone can ‘splain circular polarization to me, that would be grand!
lwizardl wrote:
I noticed that my system came with part of the eye covers. It has the plastic lock piece but is missing the full rubber section. Are they normally found like this or is the plastic piece also normally missing?
Is there a cheap way to replace the missing rubber section or will I have to buy on of the expensive ones off ebay 🙁
Welcome! VB is so much fun; you have to get games like “Bound High”. But you can’t play it while someone is sleeping, or in an apartment complex; it’s very frustrating and can cause screaming! 😉
Having the plastic frame is most of the battle; the foam shield tends to die after awhile, exterior fabric starts separating from the base material.
I bought a replacement foam shield new in box for just a few dollars. But of course, that was a decade ago. I have a red-orange 3D printed frame, bought a sheet of red foam material from Hobby Lobby. I confess I haven’t cut one out yet, but it should work perfectly. It would help immensely if you had access to an original for a pattern; or if you could sweet-talk someone here into tracing a pattern for you…
That’s an even bigger “if” than finding a prototype cartridge. Very seldom has source code ever been found. The most notable source code discover I know of was for Star Fox 2 (SNES), which the playable prototype was compiled from. Almost never does that happen though.
Well, we got the source code for “Bound High”, and I have a playable cart of a very excellent prototype (arguably the best game ever made for the VB). 🙂
A lot of private collectors don’t think about such things, hence why you never find them online in communities. The only hope there is for the private collector to sell off or drop dead.
Hoping someone drops dead so we can get a game.
That sounds …somehow …unsettling…
😯
As I said before, there are are plenty of examples to prove my point. Prototypes can always surface, no matter how late. Bio Force Ape on Famicom was one such game. There was never any evidence of the game’s existence on a cartridge, it was only known about in a couple issues of Nintendo Power. It had been hoaxed before on Digital Press, before eventually being found for sale on a Japanese auction site. There was no rhyme or reason behind the game surfacing, nobody specifically went out and bought it off someone. The exact same thing could happen to Dragon Hopper in the future as well. Someone may very well put a prototype cart of it on eBay or other such auction site. Someone might come to PVB saying they bought it at an estate sale. Anything is possible. Going by historic prototypes, there are better odds of the game surfacing on its own than through deliberate searching.
On Ferry’s site once someone posted claiming to have two prototypes, one of DH. Even put up a jpeg of a blank cart with a “Brother” label, as you would expect for a prototype. The consensus with the rest of us was that he was full of bologna…
So we’ll keep our fingers crossed that more prototypes (plural!!!) show up (not that someone dies!!!)…
If you dig a little deeper in the forum posts you would find the 3D CAD model was made by me, by all means print some for yourself but, vb-fan, not a good call to recommend selling them, its my work you’d be selling, not too cool.
I humbly apologize; I meant no offense. No one is currently making any, I didn’t see the harm in meeting some “minimum quantity” (if a company required it) by offering to split that minimum number with the members here, at cost.
vb-fan wrote:
I bet if a fab shop has minimums, you could have several parts printed and people here would buy some.
Perhaps I should have worded it “split the costs of a run between us”, implying zero profit.
Hope you forgive me. 🙂
if anyone does get more printed post some pics always good to see how these things turn out as 3D printing is improving all the time
But what would they do with the “more parts printed” (extras), if they don’t offer them to the rest of us?
If a remake was made for 3DS, it would be 100% incompatible with the Virtual Boy as it would most likely be built from the ground up.
Different processors, but it generates two parallaxed images, which are combined for the “lattice display”. Suppose a game came out that embodied the same theme, layouts, treasures etcetera; one could write assembly from machine code, and then programming a VB cart from assembly should be possible.
Even if it was done as a 3D Classics release, it wouldn’t work on Virtual Boy. The only option would be a Virtual Console re-release, where yes the original ROM is being emulated.
Better, talk someone out of the source-code.
This hope for a Dragon Hopper remake for 3DS is rather dumb I find, it will never happen under normal circumstances.
Perhaps not. But I might be inclined to pick up a 3DS solely to play “Dragonhopper” if possible. 🙂
The only hope is to find the Virtual Boy prototype.
Sure it’s 2014 and there’s still no sign of it, that doesn’t mean it won’t ever be found. Many prototypes for other systems have only been found recently. In fact, most prototypes surfaced through natural channels, such as auction sites or through public collectors who chose to release the ROM. Many happen beyond the control of common people like us.
Others still haven’t either, like nearly any first party proto for N64 and 64DD. Nobody has found Mother 3 disks yet, or any Zelda 64 protos. It doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Most likely, any proto that hasn’t been found yet is in the hands of a private collector who refuses to release the ROM.
Surely the novelty of owning something no one else has, in the case of Virtual Boy games, has worn off. That nothing has surfaced implies that no cart has gotten out of N’s control.
We must all be patient, Dragon Hopper could still be found.
At the risk of sounding pessimistic, there is a time limit. I’m in America — we’re heading towards 20 trillion debt, which many spokespeople and offices have recognized as “unsurvivable”. I think everyone is only a couple years at most away from a big global collapse. No one will be interested in playing VB games then. It would be nice if I’m wrong, but it sure seems like stuff is building.
There are always rumors about games like DH, and Zero Racers, and Goldeneye existing as carts (or ROMS) in private hands; wish we could know if there really are. I knew for years that a real Faceball proto existed, I knew someone who knew the owner; and that very prototype gave us the games here on PVB.
Still, you’re right, all we can do is wait and hope.
I wanna kiss you right now! (don’t worry, I’m a woman lol) Screw making my own if I can get these printed now.
Very cool — I wonder how many other fans of “Virtual Boy” are girls! 🙂
You reminded me —I took a laser class in college; a couple classmates were also in the “computer design” class (I wanted to take that one!). They actually built a single 8080 computer board, had a serial port on it (nowadays the design has a USB port). Abdul from Saudi Arabia was trying to build his — I have never seen such horrible soldering! Cold joints, beads on leads not connected to the PCB pads, it was awful. I said, “Abdul, let me solder that for you.”
He said, “You’d do that for me?” I said, “Sure — I do that all day every day!” He said, “Oh if you would do that, I would kiss you!”
I said, “Tell you what; you promise not to kiss me, and I’ll do it!” The next class I handed him a fully assembled computer, all shiny and good solder joints! He was very happy.
Not to brag, two out of twenty two students’ boards worked the first time, with no trouble-shooting; his was one of them! 🙂
Please keep me posted if you have some printed, I would like a couple. And I guarantee you’d sell several others here!
Thanks for the advice and tips. Much appreciated. Are there really places that 3D print these parts? If you happen to know a link, could you share? Hell if I don’t have to go through the work of making my own, I definitely won’t lol. I haven’t decided which material I am using for the replacement piece yet since I haven’t yet received the stand. I want to get an actual feel for the plastic/material before I start this.
There are places you can go to have a part printed, often ABS (a denser and stronger variant of styrene). The original is likely made of it. I bet if a fab shop has minimums, you could have several parts printed and people here would buy some. I could use a couple myself!
