Hi,

Posting a separate thread specifically about my VB cart programmer. As I mentioned in another thread this can dump the ram/rom space of any VB game. Also allows writing to ram/rom of my custom 16Mbit carts. I’m adding support for my larger 256Mbit cart as well.

I’ll be building a few of these programmers in the next month or so and I’m wondering if anyone has any interest in them. Some free ones will be going to developers for games that need the larger 256Mbit cart. This is really meant as a developer tool but putting it out there for anyone. PM me if interested.

You can see more info here: http://www.mellottsvrpage.com/index.php/virtual-boy-cartridge-programmer/

Thanks,
Kevin

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Seam wrote:
Any updates? I’d love to see how this is progressing 🙂

Yes. An email just went out to those who filled the initial list.

I’m making updates to the enclosure and I’m about to order parts for the builds.

A few pictures of the first assembled unit powered up. I made some additional updates to the model and will be printing what is hopefully the last test print.

There have been some additional FW updates as well for functionality and I animated the character feet. 🙂

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Testing black letters.

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That looks so damn cute.

speedyink wrote:
That looks so damn cute.

1000x agree!!

Good work man!

awesome

Wow, Kevin! This thing came out so well! I love how cute it is!

So what does this thing do? Lol out of the loop

Where does the cable on the side connect to? What’s the purpose of it?

From my understanding, this is a way to Flash one of his boards with a ROM. His boards do not use batteries, so in a sense, this is an upgrade to the FB? The cable in the side most likely plugs into a computer’s USB.

Yes, it’s a slightly better design then Flashboy+ but still only one game at a time. The upside is you can dump games using it (but who honestly will ever need to use that feature) and also it will allow for larger games (if they get made in the future).

He’s hoping to eventually make a multicart but that would be later down the road. At this point it’s just a really cool novelty item for the VB collector that wants everything (everyone else should just stick with a Flashboy+).

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Dreammary wrote:
Yes, it’s a slightly better design then Flashboy+ but still only one game at a time. The upside is you can dump games using it (but who honestly will ever need to use that feature) and also it will allow for larger games (if they get made in the future).

He’s hoping to eventually make a multicart but that would be later down the road. At this point it’s just a really cool novelty item for the VB collector that wants everything (everyone else should just stick with a Flashboy+).

Correct. At this point its a programmer for my 16Mbit and 128Mbit reprogrammable carts. A two part flashboy with an option of a larger cart. It can also dump and save RAM contents (save data) for those who have expressed interest. Yes, can dump the RAM as well. Works with any size RAM/ROM by setting a couple parameters. It recognizes my boards and chips sizes automatically and sets them up appropriately.

The USB cable is for connection back to the PC where a user menu is displayed on screen via a terminal program like RealTerm. ASCII menu that can do quite a few things that mimic a normal EEPROM/Flash programmer like ChipMax2.

More info here: http://www.mellottsvrpage.com/index.php/virtual-boy-cartridge-programmer/

This is meant as a developer tool. Most VB users shouldn’t need anything like this. I just got a bit carried away with the case to make it more interesting. Turns out I’ll be using a form of the case in a new project so it was worth the time. 🙂

Also correct that my boards don’t need a battery for SRAM backup. They use an nvSRAM which has a unique approach to saving SRAM data upon power down as to not require a battery. Should outlast most of us.

First couple free developer units going out. 🙂

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Some labels for the reprogrammable carts going out with the programmers.

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It looks good.

Thanks. The carts have NFC tags in them too that hold serial number and link to my programmer webpage. Fun stuff. Just playing around to see what can be done.

What a super awesome project!

I love how you used the little animated VB guy as the label on the carts, Kevin. He needs a cute mascot name now.

A few devs are getting some early test 256Mbit carts.

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About half the units are out there now.

I sold just a set of boards to someone and they designed a simple box enclosure that is a lot cheaper to have printed and assembled. They agreed that I can release the design files here on the forum for people who would want to print their own enclosure. I’m having a print done myself right now. Base units are millimeters.

Pictures and design files attached. 🙂

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