The Noteworthy Auction Thread™

Aug 09, 2003 • 19:54

In this thread we all want to post cool, spectacular, noteworthy, jaw-dropping […] Virtual Boy auctions on ebay, Yahoo or any other site…

At first here are two auctions on Yahoo Japan (Always cooool stuff on there!) for the japanese Nintendo Store Display:

➡<http://page.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/58915948>

➡<http://page3.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/c39350994>

KR155E

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Viewing 20 replies - 1,541 through 1,560 (of 2,110 total)

2,110 Replies

Sep 08, 2015 • 18:06

Benjamin Stevens

nova1313 wrote:
Videoboy – Kind of rare as I haven’t seen one at auction before. Price is crazy high though.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nintendo-Virtual-Boy-TV-Boy-ULTRA-
RARE-DEVELOPER-Play-Games-on-your-TV-/111766036044?hash=item1a05c65e4c

I am only aware of 2 of these being accounted for, so unfortunately, it is a case where the 2 collectors who own them get to decide what the market must pay to acquire one of them, or else the 2 units remain in the collectors’ hands indefinitely.

Sep 08, 2015 • 21:07

bigmak

I think there is a mod you can do to the virtual boy to connect it to a tv.

-Eric

Sep 08, 2015 • 21:24

Lester Knight

for that price i would need much more than a guy saying “this is not a bootleg”. the fact that he said that twice doesn’t sit well with me. is there any documentation on these? any internal images or an expert that could definitively say that it is what he says it is?

Sep 08, 2015 • 23:14

bigmak

http://www.planetvb.com/modules/hardware/?type=vue&sec=video_boy

Sep 09, 2015 • 02:43

RunnerPack

He mentions that you can play in red, but I’m sure I saw images of it displaying red/green anaglyph (and perhaps even read about that option, somewhere). Is that only available from the RGB port, does he just not know how to enable that option, or were there different models with different capabilities?

Sep 09, 2015 • 16:37

Benjamin Stevens

RunnerPack wrote:
He mentions that you can play in red, but I’m sure I saw images of it displaying red/green anaglyph (and perhaps even read about that option, somewhere). Is that only available from the RGB port, does he just not know how to enable that option, or were there different models with different capabilities?

There only seems to have ever been one model, and since there is a very limited number of switches on the outside of the Video Boy, I would have to guess that the two-screen option can only take effect by using the RGB port, with the green cable showing the left screen and the red cable showing the right screen. Thus, the AV output must only be able to show the right screen.

Sep 09, 2015 • 18:45

Benjamin Stevens

By the way, my previous conclusion about the 2-screen option was based on the information found in the VUE Debugger guide on this site:

http://www.planetvb.com/content/hardware/vue_debugger/guide/guide_jpn.pdf

A rough English translation of this guide appears here:

http://www.planetvb.com/content/hardware/vue_debugger/guide/guide_eng.pdf

The Video Boy is discussed in section 11. In that section, after mentioning the RGB port, it mentions that the left eye screen appears on the television monitor in green and that the right eye screen appears on the television monitor in red. It also says that you can make just the left eye screen appear on the TV or just the right eye screen. It doesn’t give any special instructions for how to do so, and it also does not mention the need to have the VUE Debugger to change the option, so whoever wrote the original Japanese instructions must have thought that how to make solely the green left eye screen appear or solely the red right eye screen appear would be self-evident after mentioning the RGB input.

Anyway, to preserve the photos of this special auction:

(By the way, I know the seller of this auction and know that 2.5 years ago, he was willing to accept $17,000.00 for this Video Boy. I also know that he loves to jack up the prices of his items a great deal as each year passes, so if you want to have a chance at being considered a serious bidder by him, you will probably have to offer at least half of his $36,000.00 asking price.)

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Sep 10, 2015 • 12:48

L___E___T

Looks nice, I’d love to have one, but I personally find even half that BIN an insane price when TV out kits are already possible.

I meant to say – that other Intelligent Systems 3D or multiscreen capture kits indeed have that option for side by side screens, with various dipswitch settings and accompanying PC software, so I’d like to think that this does also.

Sep 10, 2015 • 14:21

Benjamin Stevens

L___E___T wrote:
Looks nice, I’d love to have one, but I personally find even half that BIN an insane price when TV out kits are already possible.

I meant to say – that other Intelligent Systems 3D or multiscreen capture kits indeed have that option for side by side screens, with various dipswitch settings and accompanying PC software, so I’d like to think that this does also.

Based on what appears in the VUE Debugger Guide, I would not expect that the Video Boy could show side-by-side screens or have any other options besides what is listed in the guide. It seems to be able to show red and green anaglyph images, as RunnerPack mentioned, and it can also show the left-eye image alone and the right-eye image alone. That is probably all that it can do, so its uses are very limited.

Actually, now that I looked at the Japanese text more closely, it seems that the left-eye screen is displayed on the TV in red and that the right-eye screen is displayed on the TV in green, which is the opposite of what I wrote earlier, and I wrote that based on the rough English translation of section 11 of the VUE Debugger guide, which appears on this site. Nevertheless, since “左目用画像と右目用画像” is in the same order as “赤色と緑色” in the guide, I would conclude that it is the left-eye screen or image that would appear on the TV in red, and the right-eye screen or image would appear on the TV in green. Here is how I would translate section 11 of the VUE Debugger Guide:

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

11) ビデオボーイVUE
ビデオボーイVUEにPAL方式ビデオ入力またはRGB入力が用意されているテレビモニタを接続するだけで、バーチャルボーイの立体画像を擬似的にテレビモニタに表示します。バーチャルボーイのゲームカセットをビデオボーイVUEに実装すると、左目用画像と右目用画像をそれぞれ赤色と緑色でテレビモニタに表示することができます。また、左目用のみの画像や右目用のみの画像を選択して表示することも可能です。
複数人数で同一画面の確認ができるので、デモンストレーション時、仕様打ち合わせ時、デバッグ時などに威力を発揮します。

11) Video Boy VUE
Simply connect a television monitor, which is provided with a PAL format video input or RGB input, to the Video Boy VUE, in order to display the Virtual Boy’s stereoscopic images on the television monitor in a simulated manner. When you insert a Virtual Boy game cartridge into the Video Boy VUE, it will be able to display the left-eye image and the right-eye image on the television monitor in red and green, respectively. In addition, it is also possible to select and display only the image for the left eye and only the image for the right eye.
Since the same screen can be checked by a multiple number of people, this will be quite useful during debugging, during a design meeting, at the time of a demonstration, etc.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

So with the very limited instructions and possible uses, combined with the fact that the eBay seller doesn’t even seem to know about the two-screen option (and he mentions that he has never used the RGB port), combined with the fact that the only switch on the outside of the Video Boy is the on/off switch, it would seem that the green screen would be displayed by plugging in the green cord of the RGB connector and the red screen would be displayed by plugging in the red cord. If you want to remove one of the Virtual Boy’s screens from the TV, then you would simply unplug the respective cord. Of course, it seems that the AV port doesn’t allow for the two-screen option, since all of its video input goes through a single cord. It also seems that there would be no way to use the Video Boy itself to adjust the parallax of the two stereoscopic screens or at all set them up side-by-side, so such would have to be done prior to flashing the test ROM to the cart and inserting it into the Video Boy, which would simply display what is already flashed to the cart.

Sep 10, 2015 • 17:55

DanB

I can confirm that at least with the VUE Debugger you can get red/green anaglyph from the PAL AV OUT, no need to use RGB OUT for that. You change between the modes using command lines in the pc software. I don’t know about the video boy, but it seems likely they used the same components since it’s in the same series… Maybe it has internal dip switches for that, if there is no pc connection?

Sep 13, 2015 • 20:00

Lester Knight

mosaic box vb: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Virtual-Boy-System-1st-Version-Mosaic-Box-Nintendo-Japan-NEW-/231481991109?hash=item35e566dfc5

another of the same, much cheaper: http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Nintendo-Virtual-Boy-Console-System-Mosaic-Limited-Version-Import-Japan-/161822438370?hash=item25ad5e73e2

Oct 09, 2015 • 12:50

Benjamin Stevens

Both issues of the rare VB Guide at a Buy-It-Now price of 12,000 yen.

http://page7.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/g161293087

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Oct 09, 2015 • 17:33

VectrexRoli

Benjamin Stevens wrote:
Both issues of the rare VB Guide at a Buy-It-Now price of 12,000 yen.

http://page7.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/g161293087

Thanks Ben, is there any more detailed information about those magazines available? All I know is that it is a “fanzine”, but is it known who produced that, how could you buy that back then and how did the target group look like? So obviously there were also others types of those fanzines available that were not Virtual Boy related?

Oct 09, 2015 • 18:41

Benjamin Stevens

VectrexRoli wrote:

Benjamin Stevens wrote:
Both issues of the rare VB Guide at a Buy-It-Now price of 12,000 yen.

http://page7.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/g161293087

Thanks Ben, is there any more detailed information about those magazines available? All I know is that it is a “fanzine”, but is it known who produced that, how could you buy that back then and how did the target group look like? So obviously there were also others types of those fanzines available that were not Virtual Boy related?

Sorry, but I am not aware of any detailed information in the English language about what you are looking for. The most pertinent information about these magazines is probably that which is contained in these magazines themselves in the Japanese language, but I myself have no plans to translate this material at this time, as such is very time-consuming for me.

Oct 09, 2015 • 19:21

VectrexRoli

I understand, I didn´t expect any translation of course, I just was curious if you already knew some more details about it. 😉

Oct 24, 2015 • 14:25

bigmak

http://page12.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/jp/auction/p494147144

Even has the Japanese foot plate.

-Eric

Oct 24, 2015 • 14:53

VectrexRoli