Hey everyone,

My background is in computer science and I love retro gaming. I have recently began collecting for Virtual Boy. This system is quite neat for homebrew and I look forward to exploring its game library. So far, I have two Virtual Boys (one with soldered ribbon cables) and a few games:
Telero Boxer
Mario Clash
Mario Tennis
Wario Land
Vertical Force
Galactic Pinball
Red Alarm

I purchased my first Virtual Boy which seemed to be defective so I ordered another one. It turns out that the first one was not defective, but likely just had cartridge slot oxidation which was preventing it from booting up. I tested my original console today and was pleasantly surprised to see it working again. My second unit has had the ribbon cables soldered on. Both units work great now!

I look forward to getting a flash cart of some sort (hopefully the Multiboy 32) in order to explore homebrew development. I am also planning on RGB modding one of my units with furrtek’s board. I know he no longer sells them, but there are a few people who plan to manufacture his board.

I’m happy to be joining the community and am excited to explore homebrew on the Virtual Boy!

Welcome!

Always great to see new VB enthusiasm! 🙂

Welcome to PVB!

Virtual Boy is one of the coolest consoles ever made; it really is. It’s only started to achieve its full potential recently though with homebrew as you are aware.
Welcome to the community!

pcmantinker wrote:
I purchased my first Virtual Boy which seemed to be defective so I ordered another one. It turns out that the first one was not defective, but likely just had cartridge slot oxidation which was preventing it from booting up. I tested my original console today and was pleasantly surprised to see it working again. My second unit has had the ribbon cables soldered on. Both units work great now!

Good job. Your story sounds familiar. Where did you end up getting your solder fixed unit? I know I’ve read something similar before on one site or another kind of recently.

Thanks everyone! I bought both consoles from eBay. The soldered unit I bought from a seller named madmorda. Though, I’m not sure if this person is active on Planet VB.

Ironically, on the solder fixed system, the right screen seems to have come loose as there are issues with the display at the moment. I will see about reflowing the solder to fix this issue. I’ve also ordered some cables for both consoles from RetroDan to improve upon the original ribbon design.