I’ve had two Virtual Boys for a while now. One of them (my good VB) was in nice cosmetic shape, with a couple of black horizontal lines across the display, but nothing that bad. The other one (which was sold to me in “broken” condition) didn’t look as nice, and the displays had big issues. Recently, I got a dremel, and modified a screwdriver bit to be able to repair both of my VBs. The first one I fixed was my not so nice looking VB. I baked the displays and it worked great, they both work perfectly now. Then I tried to fix my other VB…. For some reason, the displays now glitch horribly, even after trying the repair process several times. So now, my good VB’s displays are shot, and my “bad” VB works perfectly.

Now my good VB is sitting in a box in the corner of the attic, rendered unplayable. I want some advice on what to do with it. I don’t know if it can be fixed (although I’d really appreciate it if someone could tell me another thing to try,) but I do have a lot of other spare VB stuff that I’m not using. Should I sell it? Should I swap outsides with the other VB so that I have a nice looking VB again? What would be the best thing to do?

Why not put the good displays from the ugly VB in the good looking VB?

I agree with runner. then sell the ugly one, or use it to try and make something.

Does swapping the insides around lower the value of the VB at all? I was going to swap the insides but I wasn’t sure…

Let’s see, broken vs. working… which one is more valuable… That’s a tough one! 😛

Also, I don’t agree with edracon; don’t sell the ugly one after the switch. For one thing, who would buy a VB with bad and unfixable displays? (you were going to mention that, right?)

For another, you can keep it for spare parts (cart sockets don’t last forever…) or to test painting techniques and other mods before you do them to your working one (which you probably wouldn’t do judging by the “value” comment, but there it is…)

You could also make a cool VB themed art piece with it. For example, you could gut it, put some bright red LEDs (perhaps the flickering kind) inside and mount the lens side a few cms from the wall to cast a cool red glow behind it as it appears to hover there.

Hey, that actually sounds pretty cool…

(If you do that, I’ll pay shipping for you to send the guts to me ;-))

RunnerPack wrote:
Let’s see, broken vs. working… which one is more valuable… That’s a tough one! 😛

Also, I don’t agree with edracon; don’t sell the ugly one after the switch. For one thing, who would buy a VB with bad and unfixable displays? (you were going to mention that, right?)

I said “then sell the ugly one, or use it to try and make something.” That can go for anything from repair parts or the sorts. So i did mention it. Also someone looking for part would buy the broken display VBOY, so now you know who would bye a VBOY with bad and unfixable displays.

Actually, the one that works isn’t all that bad looking (I’m probably the only one who would notice, it has more scratches) so I think I’ll just leave it alone for now. As for the value comment… I’m more of a video game collector. I’d only mod my Virtual Boy if I knew another was going to be readily available/it looked really bad. I just wish I could get my old one working…