LOL! Looking at the 4th picture, the seal is clearly over the sticker, which had been marked by hand… and is the 6th picture showing the side of the box? That’s not even shrink wrap!

DogP

Samus, or maybe Nyan (though you’d probably have to feed her lots of Pop Tarts then).

DogP

That sounds interesting, but please make the controls more intuitive than QWOP – http://www.foddy.net/Athletics.html 😀

DogP

LOL… I don’t think the Wii would be very graphically appealing in 4 shades of red.

DogP

You could try drilling a couple holes (or at least indents) straight across and use a flathead. I also remember seeing some gritty goo that’s supposed to help to remove stripped bolts. From a quick search, I can’t find it, but apparently it helped improve grip from the tool to the bolt… maybe it’d work for you (if you can find it).

DogP

Inside your libgccvb, add this line:

#define SSTOP			*(u8*)0x01000580 //Sound Stop: 0x01 = Stop (all other bits ignored)

DogP

Who sells $30 pre-ground ones? That $15 one seems way overpriced… at $30, I don’t see why you wouldn’t just buy the whole driver.

From what I’ve read, the complete security bit driver is made of quality metal and properly formed and strong, and doesn’t strip… a lot of those cheap security bits that I’ve bought are made of cheap metal that’s not shaped correctly, the hole is offset from the center, and it strips after a few uses.

You can get the driver several places (there’s a thread somewhere on here)… one of them is here: http://www.nintendorepairhut.com/repairsupplies/nesrepairsupplies.html (Professional 4.5mm Nutsetter Screw Driver). I think there’s some other places that are cheaper, but might be international.

DogP

In that case, I’d say they’re worth <$40. 😉 An auction on Ebay seems like a pretty good indicator of the open market, assuming that people who were interested were aware of it. I personally wouldn't pay more than $20, and would actually pay less for that one than the regular Blockbuster one, because I'd rather have a Virtual Boy sticker than a Travel Master sticker. But I'm not really your typical collector that needs every variant of everything. DogP

VirtualJockey wrote:
Who made the PCB on the right? I hope one day someone can produce homebrew PCBs with the pin-out (pin-in) intact.

That was my PLCC PCB: http://www.projectvb.com/tech/carts/plccpcb.html .

DogP

Are you sure your start button isn’t bad? There’s no reason that carts should stall anywhere, unless just part of the ROM is actually bad (VERY uncommon, and very unlikely to show up as stalling at the warning screen). If it boots to a screen, your cart is most likely fine. Do you have any other carts to try?

DogP

If you hold the controller like you’re playing the game, the right hand is -, left hand is +.

DogP

Long story… but yes, it’s still happening.

DogP

Vaughanabe13 wrote:
I’m really disappointed with the 3DS so far. It’s clear Nintendo rushed this thing out the door. The construction is shoddy, the battery life is almost nonexistant, the screen has a very specific “sweet spot” that you have to view in order to see the 3D without ghosting and straining your eyes. Also, they have publicly said that they want all games to be playable 100% in 2D so the 3D effects will not have any impact on gameplay, they will just be pretty to look at.

Plus the launch lineup is terrible and until the remakes of Zelda and Star Fox 64 come out I have zero excitement for any of the games. I’ve tried Pilot Wings, Street Fighter and a few others and they were only impressive for about 5 minutes. Pilot Wings is pretty worthless if you look at it as a game and not just a 3D tech demo.

Plus the online store wasn’t out at the console launch which is very bad form. Why release a device before its not ready and before there are any attractive games for the system? The sales for the 3DS are apparently underwhelming and I would not be surprised in the least if the 3DS goes the way of the Virtual Boy. At this point in time 3D is just a buzzword that stands for “more expensive and not worth it.” Consumers just don’t want 3D. They don’t want it at home on their TV, they don’t want to pay extra at the theater, and they don’t want an ugly brick of a gaming system that has to be held a foot from your face.

While I don’t agree with everything you said, I definitely do agree that at the moment, I have no desire to buy a 3DS. I played Pilotwings, and wasn’t impressed by the game, and none of the other games really looked interesting. The 3D effect was okay, but having to hold it at the one sweet spot was kinda annoying, and it did almost feel like I was looking at one of those lenticular images. And this is coming from someone who is a HUGE fan of 3D technology.

If they release some really good first party games, I’ll most likely pick it up just for them… but the 3D on that tiny screen just isn’t really immersive. 3D on a small screen (like 3D cell phone screens) just seems a little pointless. VB FTW!

DogP

Richard asked me for the cover image, but I noticed talk of the final image instead of the proto. I’m actually not sure where the “final” image came from, but it does look more like the title screen actually used… so I whipped something together quickly. If you guys would rather have this style, just say so.

I did this very quickly, and I’m DEFINITELY no artist… so it can be tweaked if anyone has better ideas. I did change the color to a yellowish orange, since the red didn’t look very good on the red background.

DogP

Attachments:

1. 

   boundhigh_mod.jpg
   

John E Bravo wrote:
It is pretty SWEET! Wonder if he’ll paint it red and black?

Yeah, he painted the front black, and is planning to paint the sides red, as well as having red T-molding.

DogP

Here’s a cover sticker I made a long time ago… I also have the PSD file (Adobe Photoshop) if anyone would like to modify it. I think the forum software also degrades the quality, so let me know if you want it and I’ll zip/post it.

DogP

Attachments:

1. 

   boundhigh.jpg
   

Interesting… I tried a lot of different chemicals, but not carb cleaner. I’ll have to give that a try next time. While NaOH isn’t difficult to work with, it does require putting into a dish and heating with a drop of water… spray can is much easier. 😉

What tipped me off to NaOH working was looking at the MSDS of polyimide (the coating that FFC uses). It basically said it’s resistant to most chemicals, except hot NaOH.

Does it actually dissolve the coating, or just break the adhesive bond between the polyimide and the copper, causing it to peel back. Of course either one gives you nice access to the bare copper, but I’m just curious.

And yes, just like any method… you’ve gotta protect that window. You should actually be able to use it with the window removed, or swap windows with another (more dead) display though.

DogP

I assume it’s this style holder: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/7948 ? If so, you should make sure the copper pad underneath is clean… sometimes the copper oxidizes, causing bad contact. With those holders, the PCB itself is the bottom contact, rather than typical battery holders, which have metal contacts for + and -, which get soldered to the board.

DogP

It has definitely gotten much more expensive for the common stuff. I used to grab complete systems w/ games for <$20... sometimes with Blockbuster hard cases. I also grabbed a few brand new VBs for $10 each... they had LOTS of them, but I decided to only grab 3 :/. But that was back in the late 90s and early 2000s. It seems to me that it's a generation thing... the mid-90's kids are growing up and buying stuff they either had as a kid, or remember wanting (or at least to try). I've noticed that a lot of other video games from that era are going up as well. DogP

If your mirrors are vibrating, I’m not sure how much troubleshooting you can do with a multimeter. Everything is pretty much logic after verifying that you have +5V, and if your mirrors are vibrating, your +5V should be fine.

One thing you could verify is that the vibration of both of your mirrors is stable. The games wait for the mirrors to be stable at the correct frequency before starting, so if you’ve got one that’s stuck, rubbing, defective, etc, the game won’t start.

DogP