Hi all, great community here. I love to see older systems and more importantly rare system get emulated. Keep up the good work!
I wanted to drop in and make a small introduction and post a link to my work. The only bit of interest you may have, is my Virtual Boy usb adapter. I would be more then happy to help anyone that want to make one on there own.
I make a product called Bliss-Box. The aim of the product is to allow a one box solution for all adapters to usb. I have finally completed version 1.0 and reached my goals. You can read more here.
http://spawnlinux.dyndns.org/Bliss-Box/
this image does not include the VB
The VB, as most of you may know, is the same protocol for (s)nes with a few altered buttons assignments. That and the fact it is a different connector. As far as I could search, I could not find a female port.. Just so happens I make my own ports.. One of my hurtles with my project was cost. I could not make it affordable as I needed to buy all of the extension cables. So I mastered the art of making them.
I do my own custom fabrications and would not mind building a usb VB adapter for anyone that wants one. Feel free to drop by my site and inquire.
So… this means you can use a VB controller on a PC without having to hack the controller or make an interface?
– Correct
No offense… but that looks like a mess. IMO, I’d make a standard connector that attaches to your uC, and then sell adapters from whatever system to the uC connector. If possible, multiple ports off the same box would be cool (so people only had to buy one USB adapter and several common port adapters to do 2P).
That is an option as well, you can get just the board and wire it up your self. but IMO having all of these dongles or patch cables laying around is tacky.. But hey to each their own ..
If possible, multiple ports off the same box would be cool (so people only had to buy one USB adapter and several common port adapters to do 2P).
I did start out with the option for multi players. but the usb interface only handles one logic board at a time. So I than had to add hubs in the box, and small hubs lac distance. So it was a big mess. And it didn’t really save anything.
But really… at $35 + $10 for additional ports, that doesn’t seem to really save much money over cheap adapters on ebay or the ones from http://www.retrousb.com . I’m not really sure a hand-built box can really be competitive with cheaply mass produced parts with molded plastic cases.
Your right, but I dont aim at single adapters. My goal is to make what people cant get. And at that I’m the only pleace where you get custom orders. On a side note, the prefabrication on my box is near complete. I have made all kinds of customizations, from in drive bay adapters to arcade cab panels. The image above, hand made at that, is only the beta proto-type.
If you want a nes/n64/snes/sega…
RetroZone..
(4 adapters)
22
19
21
19
—
81
my adapter
(one adapter)
35
10
10
10
—
65
and if You have any skills to do it yourself, and use old extension cables.
(one adapter)
35
RetroZone = 19+19+22=40
You = 55
Like I said for common adapters you better to go else where. And to some one adapter to do it all is better then 3.
Now a bit later I decide to get into Sega
RetroZone = 40 + 21 = 61
You = 55 + 35 = 90
Again your adding another adapter. You can just send the same one back and add 10 $, your just playing number games here?
Now lets say you make a generic box with 4 generic plugs, and you make adapters for each system. You sell the generic box for eh, say 40, and with that you throw in 1 free adapter. And you sell additional adapters for $5 each (because all it is is molded plastic and wires)
With the above example…
RetroZone still is 40 for the first part
You are now 50, a little more competitive.For the second part…
RetroZone is still 61
You are now only 55, already a savings!
As I said before that totality possible. Buy a $35 board and ask for a neo-geo for example. and I show right on my page how to make the neo-geo to snes, nes, sega etc… So that is really cheep if you can do the adapters.
$35 total
or like you said I can make the patch cables for you, but I have not priced that on my page, do to the fact I never had anyone ask for it. I I would agree $5 is reasonable.
but that box is pretty ugly and expensive
More then likely the price will change. This is like every other product out there, they always start high. mainly to re-cope R&d. If I find a company( still looking) to make the connectors I think the final product will be around $45. This would be a way a down the road and based on the prices of having it made. but its not ready for prime time just yet, I only meant to give an option for the VB fans just like I do for pc-fx fans. You wont find an adapter anywhere else. I appreciate the feed back , most certainly not heard this type of comment before, its a first but taking in to consideration.
