I just wanted to share with the group what my current project is. As many of you know the majority of the games for the VB are fairly inexpensive. But Jack Bros, 3-D Tetris, and water world are crazy expensive. originally I was going to rechip some OE cartridges but the tsop type 2 memory chips are impossible to find. After talking to mellott, he made a few of his boards available to me. This allowed me to use a standard sop 44 flash ROM.
The programmer I built is based off of Sanni’s open source work. It was designed as a universal cartridge reader and writer so with a little bit of tweaking I was able to flash the VB ROM without a problem. the only problem I had was flashing the chips in 16-bit mode, but once I switched over to 8-bit mode, the ROM installed properly.
The labels I made for my cartridges came from an unexpected source. Before Christmas I had bought an HP sprocket photo printer. It outputs a glossy color sticker back picture. This makes for an excellent reproduction label.
I still have a lot of work to do but I figured I would share what I have done so far.
BigDen wrote:
Very nice work! But on the other hand: I see there a danger for collectors who look for the originals from a collecting prospective. How is it possible to see the difference to original carts? I mean, the label looks really like the original on the picture. Even the quality-logo exists. This could also lead to people trying to fool others when these appear on eBay… 🤔 Maybe I am a bit sensitive, but this was in my mind.
Sure… I understand. There are already tons of repro carts for other systems on ebay, and it is getting harder, and harder to actually spot them. But in this case… the red boards are a dead giveaway… and it actually says “Reproduction” on the top right corner of the board. With that said… sure, someone else (over seas) may decide to make up some and pass them off as real. But it’s going to take an investment to make the shells and end connectors for a VERY small market of people.
Oh… one last thing… yes, the board is a giveaway… but the vast majority of Nintendo games have a couple numbers physically stamped into the label. With the VB, it’s middle right. Any good picture will show those.
But… as with any “Collecting”… you have to know what you are looking at, and if it’s real or not.
Fyi… Here’s VB, GBA, and Pokemon Mini carts, all with stamped numbers. The only games I’ve come across (with a good label) that don’t have the numbers, were usually the “Pack-in” games.
Just wanted to post a few pics of the programmer screen. Its a tiny OLED, but its very clear.
Sorry some of the pics are sideways. They are coming off my phone that way.
Ok… Got waterworld done, and oh my gosh is it a bad game! LoL. Why would anyone pay the $150 for this one!!! Anyway… Only need to build 3D teris and i will have the complete USA set. (All the rest are original) the label on this one isn’t as nice. I couldn’t find a good high res picture of it. Oh well… Not a big deal.
