That’s awful !! People like Richard Hutchinson and Kr155e are working hard to sell a good price Flashboy units . I think people who try to win a lot of money with Flashboy carts don’t deserve their own units .
I don’t think it’s awful. I don’t think anyone got a FlashBoy just to make profit selling it, it’s more likely that those selling their’s on ebay are just no longer interested in the VB or something.
Actually, I am happy and a bit flattered that the FlashBoy is such a sought after item. I am sure the same applies for Richard. Such auctions only show, that, while 90 EUR seem like a high price at first, you’re actually getting something that is worth more than that. You can always make your money back plus some extra if you no longer want it. And of course make someone else happy, who wants one desperately. 😉
I hope that we can soon make those waiting for the new batch happy, too. It might take until late September, though, since a lot of other stuff will be getting in the way until then. Stupid exams. 🙁
Yeah, the one that went for 204 was mine actually. I’m a gamer and a collector. So I bought one to use, and one to keep in my collection. I also bought one for a friend who never decided to pick it up, and that was the one I sold. Normally these go for a lot less, but since they are currently unavailable, I got a good price. A simple supply and demand situation. I’m always amazed that people are upset when something sells for a good price, and you never hear from those same folks when something goes under value, and if you do, it’s only because they missed out on a deal.
How would you guys feel if there were another USB flash cart on the market? I’ve been thinking about making one of my own but I wouldn’t want to make anyone mad in the process. Mine would probably be made on a cheaper PCB so it would cost less than 90 Euro, and it would be based in the USA. Thoughts?
Also, I agree with your opinion that I think it’s a great thing when people sell a cart that they are not using. It’s not the seller’s fault the cart sold for over 200, they were just passing on the flashboy to someone else who would use it, and it just happened to sell for a high price because the demand is high.
If I design a flash cart it will have battery-backed SRAM eventually. I haven’t worked out how I will transfer save data to and from the SRAM though.
I have been researching this project for a while, but there is one major problem that I can’t overcome right now – Basically, I can’t find any flash memory chips still in production that can interface directly with the VB cartridge pins. It must be a 8-16 MBit flash IC with 5V-tolerant pins and a parallel addressing system. Almost all flash IC’s in production today are either designed for 3.6V max or they are designed to read/write via SPI/I2C. This is fine for getting a ROM on the cart, but the VB won’t be able to read the ROM data!
I see that the chip used in the Flashboy, at least according to the latest images on the the Flashboy section of this site, is an Intel DT28F160, but as far as I know that chip is obsolete and unavailable anywhere, and I can’t find any comparable alternatives that are still in production.
If I can get some flash chips that fit the requirements, I think it would be pretty easy to design a new flashboy that can improve on the existing design and cost less.
But you will have a bigger problem than to find the right flash memory chips. There is one element built in the Flashboy, which makes the FB perfect. But you won’t be able to find it. And when you think you found it, you can’t buy it. Even if your able to buy it you will realize, it’s not the same you were looking for. It is unreachable, priceless!
The element I’m talking about is LOVE. the Flashboy consists of 2% turnover, 20% fun, 38% skills, 50% LOVE (this information is supplied without liability!). It is the LOVE from the bottom of Chris’ and Richie’s hearts for the Virtual Boy and for the community. Even if exists another flash cart, cheaper and better with an amount of thousand units, it won’t be the same.
Let me give an example:
one night with my lovely girlfriend isn’t comparable to one night with any other girl (ok, it depends on the hotness of the “ohter girl”, but it’s still not the same 😉 )
But you will have a bigger problem than to find the right flash memory chips. There is one element built in the Flashboy, which makes the FB perfect. But you won’t be able to find it. And when you think you found it, you can’t buy it. Even if your able to buy it you will realize, it’s not the same you were looking for. It is unreachable, priceless!
The element I’m talking about is LOVE. the Flashboy consists of 2% turnover, 20% fun, 38% skills, 50% LOVE (this information is supplied without liability!). It is the LOVE from the bottom of Chris’ and Richie’s hearts for the Virtual Boy and for the community. Even if exists another flash cart, cheaper and better with an amount of thousand units, it won’t be the same.
I am gonna frame those beautiful words and hang them on the wall. 🙂
I know I haven’t been here that long *but* I know I have had a passion for the VB since my childhood when it came out and I would like to contribute something significant to the VB community some day.
I wasn’t suggesting the existing FB is flawed, I would just like to harness some of its awesomeness and try to improve on the design a little. If you’re suggesting I wouldn’t put love into it you’ve got another thing coming!
Question, would you guys rather have a flash cart that can interface to the computer via USB cable (like the current design), or would you prefer a removable MicroSD card solution instead? The R4DS flash cart I have has a slot for a MicroSD card and you can drag your ROM files onto the card with your computer and insert the MicroSD card into the game cart. Which system would you prefer?
Vaughanabe13 wrote:
If you’re suggesting I wouldn’t put love into it you’ve got another thing coming!
That’s exactly what I meant by “flawed logic” 😉
Question, would you guys rather have a flash cart that can interface to the computer via USB cable (like the current design), or would you prefer a removable MicroSD card solution instead? The R4DS flash cart I have has a slot for a MicroSD card and you can drag your ROM files onto the card with your computer and insert the MicroSD card into the game cart. Which system would you prefer?
I would prefer the SD one, but I’d rather have a full-size SD slot, since there’s enough room for it (and because I wouldn’t have to invest in new cards :-P). I suppose the micro slots are more future-proof, though, so you should probably go with that.
BTW, don’t you have to pay a license fee to use SD cards? Or can you use the MMC-compatibility mode without paying? I guess if it doesn’t add too much to the price it might be worth it to get SDHC support, and so on (16GB of VB homebrew, anyone? 8-)).
I know I haven’t been here that long *but* I know I have had a passion for the VB since my childhood when it came out and I would like to contribute something significant to the VB community some day. I wasn’t suggesting the existing FB is flawed, I would just like to harness some of its awesomeness and try to improve on the design a little. If you’re suggesting I wouldn’t put love into it you’ve got another thing coming!
Hey! Please don’t take it too seriously 😉 Maybe your idea is a bit inappropriate in this topic about selling the Flashboy to make big money. Thats why I missed LOVE.
I know I haven’t been here that long *but* I know I have had a passion for the VB since my childhood when it came out and I would like to contribute something significant to the VB community some day. I wasn’t suggesting the existing FB is flawed, I would just like to harness some of its awesomeness and try to improve on the design a little. If you’re suggesting I wouldn’t put love into it you’ve got another thing coming!
Hey! Please don’t take it too seriously 😉 Maybe your idea is a bit inappropriate in this topic about selling the Flashboy to make big money. Thats why I missed LOVE.
Keep cool! 😎
I understood he was kidding about the love thing. You don’t need to tell me to keep cool, I was never upset or used harsh language in the first place. I was simply explaining what I wanted to do.
I would not use an SD card, it would have to be MicroSD. You may think there is room, but space is always a huge issue on small boards. I may even have to design a 4-layer board with the design I have in mind. There are formatting utilities available that will format the MicroSD to be a simple FAT memory system. I/we wouldn’t need to pay any kind of fee to use a MicroSD card, it’s just a digital interface and is common on many designs.
My ultimate goal is to store every ROM on the MicroSD card and design some kind of VB file browsing front-end to select which game to play, and the cart will then flash the game in less than 1 second and the VB will boot straight into it.
I prefer making a programmer so that the flash cartridge is just flash memory and that’s it. Plug in the cartridge to the thing, copy your rom, and put in your VB. No case plastics are destroyed, and you can even dump your own games!
The best advantage is that you are minimizing cost if you want to have several cartridges. I think I have spent $30 on a single flash cart so far, $20 for the PCB and $10 for components. And my PCB is the same size as the VB PCBs, so in any volume at all it could be made cheap.
I don’t know how much the programmer would cost, but I figure I could have a complete set built for a similar price as a Flash Boy.
And as far as the flash, I know that I bought some Atmel flash that runs off of 3v, but allows you to run the IO at 5V. But those are already EOL… (AT49BV320D is the one I have)
Anyway, I have only recently started the project again. As my project sits, I have 1 assembled flash cart, a set of parts to make 1 more flash cart, and a crude breakout board for the flash cart. I am working on programming a micro for flashing the cart but stopped once I got the UART up and running (so yeah… I spent about a half hour so far on it…)
To get back to the original topic for a moment: Vectrexer told me that a FlashBoy was sold at the Classic Gaming Expo Auction for a final price of $170 (USD) on July 31th.
