Hooray! A proper tracker for the VB has been a dream of mine. I was hoping to have an infinite amount of time so that I could try and learn to make one for Virtual Fall, but I just didn’t have anywhere near the time nor knowledge. :/
Anyway, the canonical tracker that I can think of is LSDj for GameBoys. This link is a bit of a walkthrough by one of my favorite chiptune artists, rainbowdragoneyes.
I’ve always thought it would be great to try and be a Virtual Boy chiptune artist. 😀 Maybe when you’re done I’ll be able to!
Sounds like a great piece of kit all around, though. Thanks for your hard work! I’m super excited to see how it progresses!
Edit:// Just in case anyone’s actually interested in the song during the tutorial, it’s Creatures ov Deception. 😀
Oh wow! I’m glad to see it fired up okay and everything!
I guess I don’t know how the debugger works, but does it have its own HDD in it that could contain any data? Or is that more what the floppies are for…?
VirtualChris wrote:
Anyone? I want to work on this game some more.
Probably super uninformed thought, but: Could you write a “Black Q” in the place of the Q you want to overwrite to denote lowered health?
Alternatively, erase the bar and re-draw it, but shorter? Back in my (very limited) C++ days, doing something like that with page-flipping didn’t cause it to flicker, but I don’t know if there’s something like that on the VB.
This is absolutely fascinating and I’m super glad to see people working on it. Unfortunately I cannot contribute — I got a C+ in my one and only C++ class back in 2000, haha. I wish I knew enough to help, but I really, really don’t.
Guy Perfect: You mentioned something about cartridge expansion space. Could that be used by something equivalent to a SuperFX chip (which I believe itself is a custom ARM chip) for faster 3D? Or just anything, right? It’s expansion! haha. I know we’ll probably never do anything like that, especially considering the difficulty by which new carts are made, but it’s really fascinating to know it’s there.
That’ll probably be the last post from me in this thread — I’ll be reading every post because it’s interesting and well-written, but I don’t want to get in the way of the real work. Good luck everyone! This is a great project!
Dr. Jeckidy wrote:
As far as dumping; as someone who owns prototypes, I would rather realize the value of the item in my lifetime than never. In that case I’d prefer a donation in return for dumping the games in question so both parties are happy.
There have been a number of protos for different systems that have been dumped after a community donation. I’m 100% confident that if someone would admit to having Dragon Hopper or Zero Racers or *ANY* lost VB game, the community here would be willing to compensate them for a dump so that we can all play the game. If there are 50 of us in for $100 each (a bit more than the cost of a repro from Uncle Tusk), that’s $5k. Heck with a little bit of news coverage we might be able to go beyond that, too. That’s low for an unreleased VB prototype, but we’re a small community. The cart would still have value on its own — look at The Big 4 — they’re all dumped, but they’re still several hundred or thousand dollars a piece.
The big problem seems to be that, if anyone *does* have any unknown VB protos, they’re not talking about them; they’re keeping them secret or they just don’t care. To each their own, but dang do I hope someone comes forward with one of those protos one of these days…
Nice! 2 of my 3 VBs are solder-fixed and it was an excellent investment. I’m having some people over tonight and I’ve got a VB out with HyperFighting in it for them to try. 😀
Are the parts easier / cheaper to come by than what you’d been using in the past?
More expensive. 5V flash is getting harder to find and the guys with the old stock charge higher prices as it gets rarer. Plus, this board uses 2 chips.
Bummer… but if that’s what it takes for now, then that’s what it’ll take. Still excited about the possibilities!
Minestorm, that cartridge is beautiful! Are the parts easier / cheaper to come by than what you’d been using in the past? (really specific Intel flash chips, iirc?) I love it!
DogP wrote:
If Nintendo still has all the VB protos (or possibly no hardware, but still the source code/ROMs), I don’t see them getting out, unless they go under (look at all the crazy Atari stuff that has appeared from them closing).
Someone help me understand — what possible reason does N have for the nasty “screw you” attitude? Letting one slip out (or two or three, Dragonhopper/Zero-Racers/Goldeneye) won’t hurt their bottom line one bit, but would go VERY far in promoting good PR with clearly loyal and dedicated customers. If _I_ was running a company, I would be PLEASED that a group of people loved a product (especially one that so many considered a FLOP), I’d be delighted to give those customers with what they want. Good PR can only mean more profit in the long run; why in God’s Universe would they dis loyal customers?
:-/
DogP wrote:
I think 3rd party protos are more likely to be released… probably just sitting in a box somewhere, or maybe backed up by one of the programmers… not even realizing that anyone would want that stuff, or not releasing the stuff since it’s technically “owned” by the company.
Oh programmers realize; apparently “N” has a hard-nosed “sue-you” attitude towards former employees. Again, what possible harm could come of letting a couple protos out? None; and plenty of good will come of it.
I think it has more to do with Nintendo needing to protect their goods than it does a goodwill gesture for a few dozen or hundred enthusiasts.
Part of US law regarding either trademarks or copyrights (I can never remember) is that the company has to show actual effort in protecting their IP, otherwise they could lose the trademark/copyright. So, if Nintendo became blasé about releasing unreleased stuff, it could potentially do them actual harm.
I’m sure they’re thrilled to have enthusiasts out there who are interested in their old system… but there’s really no good mechanism for them to “just give us” the goods.
More likely beyond that is that Nintendo tends to not release a product until it meets a certain quality requirement. And if they feel that what they have on hand does not meet that requirement, the cost to build up the engineering team to finish it would probably be too great for them to consider it.
Until then, Dragon Hopper & Zero Racers, etc., will just have to sit in the Nintendo Vault alongside the English release of Earthbound Zero and other games… I completely agree that it’s a shame, but it’s also more complicated than “it’d be cool if they just let one slip out here and there”.
…that’s not to say it doesn’t happen, just that it’s unlikely. 🙂
If Nintendo still has all the VB protos (or possibly no hardware, but still the source code/ROMs), I don’t see them getting out, unless they go under (look at all the crazy Atari stuff that has appeared from them closing).
I hate to say it, but given the success, or rather lack thereof, of the Wii U, the day Nintendo goes under might not be too far off. I will certainly make every attempt to be at that auction and throw my whole life into the VB carts!
Nintendo has over US$5 BILLION in cash as of the middle of last year — and nearly as much in short term investments. (Their next financial report comes up next Wednesday.) They can afford to weather a few bad years so long as they keep their brands relevant.
Gamecube didn’t sell super well, but its “Nintendo” brand games were good and kept those brands alive. Wii came around and sold something like infinity units (well, 100 MILLION, still a lot). It isn’t remembered super fondly by most internet gamers, but it had a lot of really great games. Wii U is more on target to be like the Gamecube… so maybe Nintendo is following the trajectory of Star Trek movies — every other one is good.
On top of that, the DS sold super well (~150 million) and the 3DS is doing alright (~43 million) and its library keeps getting better.
I don’t think we’ll see the end of Nintendo any time soon… though I think we’ll see the Wii U’s successor faster than you might think if this were a “normal” console cycle for them.
