vuefinder83 wrote:
Yeah, this most likely is a battery issue. I know someone locally that would be able to replace it for me because I for sure will not attempt it if soldering is involved, but his shop is closed for another week. I’m in no hurry, but it’s going to bother me so I’m definitely going to have it done. I’ll post the results.

Thanks for the replies 👍

Yes it is required, technically. I’ve seen people who are too scared strap down batteries using black electrical tape, but if it slips your work is toast. That friend probably could if you did tape it down, stick down the tabs without popping the replacement off if you had a tabbed battery handy.

mellott124 wrote:

VmprHntrD wrote:
I really wish someone would take one of these updated emulators and back port it to something that’s not stuck on those expensive goggles. I like vbjin enough but it’s not perfect either by any means.

You can get an Oculus Go for about the same price as a VB.

I see the site says one model there and $200. I got lucky with my VB then. 😉 Seriously though, I can’t rationalize spending $200 on something I’d barely touch, but I get what you’re saying.

Yeah the battery works, but it’s not good. I guess the closest term would be that it’s producing undervoltage. There’s enough of a charge left for it to work when the system hits the game with some juice so it feels like it should last, but if you walk away for X amount of hours/days it will be gone if it hasn’t been hit again. I had a SimCity on SNES that did this, it would last weeks, then die.

I really wish someone would take one of these updated emulators and back port it to something that’s not stuck on those expensive goggles. I like vbjin enough but it’s not perfect either by any means.

Last years I got an original of this game and it works, but it has a problem with saving. Now I’m not saying it is impossible, but what are the odds I’d have 2 bad batteries, one I bought new? It just won’t save anything. It’s not the end of days or anything but it is slightly annoying.

I’ve got that Spy Hunter, despite the questionable choice of only having one weapon at a time (meaning loss of gun for…) it’s an oddly fun game and a bit more challenging due to that choice. The audio and visuals are amazing, right in there with the arcade too, so it’s a nice variant of the original but if you’re a purist it may piss you off.

Carmen I found this about a week ago at an overstock/return stock shop, got lucky they had one sealed up for $10 so I grabbed it. I’m shocked how good it is, far better and more reasonable than Oregon Trail with all its overkill use of death to make a point. The whole setup from the old DOS era game is there with the clues, filling in for the warrant, travel and questioning, all of it down to the win/loss of the hunt — and it saves progress too. I can’t recommend that one any higher of the two.

Yeah this is interesting to me too. I have a VB up in a closet I got probably 6mo ago now that’s just screwed because of a failed ribbon repair. Burnt curled bacon with splayed out copper wires like a bad hair day pretty much covers it. There is no salvage, there are not ribbons I can find on ebay anymore repairable or working, so this would be most helpful as some kind of kit with a new ribbon and the jack.

I feel the need to play necromancer here.

A couple weeks ago it was dumb luck that not only did I track down one of these (XPG) but the semi-local game shop which usually is high had it so long it was mismarked at $13 with Jedi Academy so I snapped it up. I’m surprised how good it is considering how badly it’s dumped on. It really is the poor mans Virtual Boy in a very obvious way. When I say good though I mean good as much as their 80s/early 90s tiger segments handheld games could get good (and a few did, very few.) I tracked down Daytona for it and have that today, kind of hoping I can find more of them.

Is there a historically decently fair barometer on what to pay or not to on these, in particular loose, as I have no interest in getting baked cutting open something new as I’m sure even this thing has collectors.

Yes and no. It was bad years back but a lot of it chilled in more recent times. Despite how things were then to closer to now, and given how it was done in a very sleazy and rotten way it was sad as it wasn’t right or deserved.

Most those who cared and weren’t snobs opened up another site from the ashes and it’s a very nice and non elitist setup so far in its few months of existence. If anything, a good flushing out was handed and what was good stayed up by moving elsewhere.

Couldn’t that just be in a way faked though? I don’t mean the sticker being wrong, but you can swap backs in under a minute.

I did it over nine months ago so I don’t care to google and try and find the where to do it exactly but there is a fast fix. All it needs is a AA battery, 2 small pieces of wire (one for each side) and you connect the wires to two spots on the board/chipset and it wipes the data in an instant. I had some crazy scores on the Pinball I got last year and wasn’t going to stand for it, then found the battery trick and it popped it back to factory settings.

There is quite a range in offerings and quality with the modern after market virtual boy stuff that’s for certain. I used to dabble a bit when I had a FB+ for a bit, but I don’t anymore. I’ve been hoping more proficient and complete works would come along with the VUE tools and rest getting better all the time. I think there’s plenty of untapped potential yet. I mean look at Hyper Fighting, that’s insane, and that one I do have a cart for.

I like that comment, they’re games meant for fun not as an investment. Not that there’s much to invest in baseball there. It has a trifecta of negatives on it keeping the price poor (good for buyers.) Sports game, over produced, poorly made. You really US wise can not do worse in game selection on the VB.

Well as opinions are like a-holes, I’m sure you’ve seen that quote. You’re dead wrong, but hey if you love your personal art that’s fantastic and probably some others do too. But, even if miserable as most the default VB art was on games (vs the Japanese stickers) they’re still what is collectible like it or not.

That said I fall on the side of intentionally offending collectors who just see dollar signs. If I label is jacked up, my take on it, find someone who can whip up something 1:1 or as close as possible that would take a really good discerning eye to say otherwise. There’s no reason to ghetto up a cart to make someone else happy who has no stake in what you do with your money and property. 🙂 Given that VB games fall into the Nintendo post-laminate stickers they’re far easier to make copies of than the NES/SNES (pre 1995) stuff.

Yeah over on either of the facebook virtual boy spaces there’s a guy named Chris Snead who has more than once successfully replaced a ribbon cable outright using thin wires for each of the connections. It looks like red clown hair gone bad, but it works fantastic.

I’ve been out of the loop for awhile now too. I knew of the project but only when it was much like the flashboy plus the inkling of the e-ink display.

I like where you’ve taken this, very unique, well above the stock scope everyone looks up to typically someone like krikzz for being saddled to a PC to load up files and all that. This unique choice of having on system buttons to menu pick what you want and then have it flashed being powered off a portable battery or wall jack via USB is genius.

Your device kind of reminds me of my NGPC SD Kit from Saint(RetroHQ) where you have limited storage capacity coupled with the microSD card. His unit has like 20Mbit or so of storage and you can wedge X games into that space, and that’s it, otherwise you re-flash. Yours is just pick one and reflash, a bit simpler but not bad at all. The NGPC by design required it because how the system/game chipset was created. Yours here though seems like a design choice which is fine, but I’m curious how fast is your write routine for say a stock standard 2MB game cart? I know from the NGPC again by the original design it’s slow, flashing it’s smallest games (512kb) takes 30sec from SD to storage, and the 4MB games take 4min each! This is the same range of size the VB has too so I’m curious to compare.

I feel the same way too. I may have newer to the whole community as of this year, but the issue isn’t a VB issue, it’s a hobby wide troll and power issue.

Years ago I even went out of my way in past eras to thwart this kind of garbage as I was once a scener in another decade. There were times in the GBA and earlier NES release era some people felt the need to lord stuff ovesr, and given I had the contacts or direct capability I stuffed a few things out to put a thumb in the eye and I relished it.

I think part of the proto end of it though is simple, people selling prototypes as new releases are basically felons, they’re crooks, selling, trafficking, and mail frauding stuff to buyers they have no legal right to. They’re not stupid, they know it when they buy the board, they own the board, not the contents unless the actual owner licensed or sold it to them. It makes it an even more sour thing when stuff like that gets controlled minimal releases, ROM hiding, and other petty stuff. It infuriates people and they just walk away.

In the case of hyper fighting, it made its money awhile back from the developer. There was no real solid ground reason to hide the thing after the fact other than control freak politics.

I think that up to $250 estimate is a lowball, at least watching what unfolds on ebay, even as a lot value and not pricing it out.

THe problem is there are plenty who are just impatient, stupid, or both (most dangerous) and you’ll see wider ranges with a higher end on the games he listed. Also yeah, it’s solder fixed. Sure it doesn’t have an OEM stand but even those third party ones seem to get about $30. A solder fixed headpiece alone I’ve seen do $150 on average repeatedly on ebay. That’s the head with or without the visor/clip assembly still there.

It wouldn’t be a stretch even with the 3rd party stand, especially with the AC adapter unit and those games to get easily $300 on what he’s got there.

Now if the two most expensive stand alone games were excluded (PB and VF) you still could easily get that with the other 4 titles so it would be like giving those away.

Surprised this finally got put out there. Just had to log in to say thanks. I own an original, but I like to keep backups and lazy easy moments with an emulator too.

Not sure how I forgot to post this but back in late August I managed to knock off the entire set finishing up with the box+game for Waterworld (had a manual already.) Ultimately I’m 3 boxes (Nester, 3D-T, Jack) and 1 manual(Jack) short, but have all 14 games and also a first run Hyper Fighting, Bound High, and V-Tetris in that picture too. Not shown a 2nd VB I fixed myself, lacks a stand but otherwise complete.

This was done all over 7mo of this year, and between smart buys and repairs/resales within it I got all that there for $780.

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