You don’t need any ASM to program games for the VB… the easiest/best way is gccVB (c compiler) combined with a bunch of other utilities to convert graphics and stuff. I think you can download gccVB and all of the utils and sample code on this site.
Yeah, there aren’t any emulators that can do sound well (Red Dragon has VERY basic sound support). I ripped a bunch of sounds a long time ago… and IIRC someone else did too, but I don’t remember who. I just recently saw my disc with the rips on it though, but I have no idea whether I knew what I was doing or not when I ripped them, since I did them at least 4-5 years ago. Drop me an email at virtual.boy – comcast.net if you want me to dig up the CD and email you the files (I don’t remember how many games I ripped them of either).
Heheheh… yeah, legal problems suck, so there definately wouldn’t be a wide release of a Mario, Zelda, or any other game like that. Not that we couldn’t rip off the idea and make our own characters/storyline… I mean, it’s the gameplay that counts right 😉 . BTW, I’m working on a Mario game, but Lameboy is working on Zelda, not me 😛 .
About Steve making more VB games… I really doubt that’d ever happen… I don’t think there’s a big enough market for it to be any more than a hobby, and well… he actually has a life 😛 . But we can always hope 😉 . Waterworld source code would be totally sweet to add a 2 player mode though 🙂 .
Yeah, my site is still down 🙁 . If you need any info from the site, let me know though… I have it all on my HD, I can email it to you. I’m not sure how to change my email addy here though, so if you want to drop me an email, it’s at comcast.net instead of mchsi.
Cool… glad it got back to you and everything’s working well. I’ve fixed a bunch of my own, and tried dropping/shaking them, but never shipped one after being fixed, so it’s good to know that it can withstand a beating from the USPS too 😉 .
Or you could make a programmable flash cart, make a program that reads the entire cart and sends the data over the link port, load that into memory, swap the cart with the SI cart and send it… oh yeah… you need a cable to connect from the VB to the PC… and a PC program to receive the data. But at least it’s relatively non-destructive 🙂 .
o_O It’s hard to come by? I think that ROM was released at the same time as every other released ROM, and should be available on every ROM site that has any VB ROMs. How did you dump it though? Make an adapter to the cart edge, remove the chip and make an adapter to the chip, dump over the link port, or some other way (finding the download and claiming you dumped it :-P… j/k)?
I went through my games, the only one that I have left on the list is Red Alarm Jap (brand new in box)… I had extras of most of the others at one time, but I was just hoarding them, so I decided to sell most of it. If you’re still interested in the RA, drop me an email (dogp – comcast.net)
Oh… sorry for not getting back to you guys sooner… I’ll have to dig through all of my stuff and I’ll let you guys know what I have. I had listed a bunch of stuff on ebay a while ago, so some has sold, but I’ve got a bunch more still.
The prices on the rare games change all the time… assuming complete, typical prices seem to be ~$800 for Gundam, $1000 for Bowling, $350 for Virtual Lab, and $300 for Space Invaders.
I also have a bunch of games, which ones are you looking for?
Yeah, I remember those carts and chips being on Yahoo Japan (I bought one of the carts), but I also remember the guy selling them on ebay later for $5000 (I guess Shizbah) said he didn’t have any way to test/dump the chips, and wasn’t interested in doing it (which threw a big red flag to me). I never heard that anything was actually on them, and I think most people assumed that they were blank (there was a thread here on them). So was there anything on any of the other chips?
BTW, the chips have no bids, and I doubt that it’ll get any… and now the seller put a reserve on it??? *shrug*
Why??? Am I the only one who sees a freshly set of burned EPROMs with screenshots stolen from your site??? BTW, I’ve seen EPROMs that came from Athena, they use their own sticker, not electrical tape to cover the window.
It just seems REALLY fishy that the seller doesn’t even show their own screenshots from their EPROM cart, which they must have to know that they’re Virtual Bowling… and how do they know that it’s exactly the same as the released version? Do they own the original and played them side by side? Do they have a dump of the original and dumped those?
I know that companies do burn final versions on EPROMs for tradeshows or press copies, but I really doubt that they were sending this game out to any tradeshows or game reviewers… so what would the reason for them having burned these “final” chips?
To me, it looks like someone bought some EPROMs, got ahold of the Virtual Bowling ROM, and burned the chips and trying to sell it as an coming from Athena.
I’m not saying that it for sure isn’t, but unless any of you personally know this seller and/or the story, I’d need a LOT more evidence than a single small picture of an EPROM that looks like every other EPROM out there and a couple of generic screenshots for me to spend any money on it. I guess at $200, those who don’t have the ROM might find it worth it to buy and dump just to have the ROM, since it’s a lot cheaper and easier than finding an original, but I wouldn’t count on it being any rare special piece.
So anyone care to fill me in on why you guys think it’s so special? Shizbah, are you the seller? If so, did you get it from someone who claimed that it was from Athena too, or did you actually obtain it directly from Athena? With no details in the auction and none here, I really can’t see why anyone would believe that this is legit.
Yeah, well we need sound in the emulators too, so people will actually hear it. I mean, otherwise only people with carts will actually hear the music, which kinda puts it pretty low on the priority list :P.
I’ve made a few sound things for the VB… it’s kinda a pain, but I sorta wrote a mod->VB converter. I think midi would work, except the VB doesn’t really do instruments like midi (or even mod), so you just have to keep that in mind (like you can’t have a drum beat and expect it to convert easily or at all).
If you could make any sort of cool music, in mod or midi, that’d be sweet if you could send it my way (dogp (@) comcast (.) net). I’m not too picky about the theme of the music, especially since I have several projects that it could be used for, and most are probably not far enough along to really have a “theme”. But, there are only 6 channels, 4 regular, 1 regular or sweep/modulation, and 1 white noise, so obviously it can’t be too complex. I’d listen to some released VB game music and hear what they do, and remember that they created the system, so they know what they’re doing, and have the right tools, so don’t make yours as complex until we have better tools 😉 .
