Some delay here on builds. USPS lost the package and the housings are being remade.

Very cool!

mellott124 wrote:

mellott124 wrote:
I have an updated FormLabs print coming. And when I asked about red translucent prints they said they have new materials and colors coming in the new year.

Formlabs announced new color kits today. Red is one of them. Anyone got a Formlabs 2 printer?

Also got the updated print from Formlabs in the translucent blue. No more warp or so much flexibility because they cured it correctly. If the tough resin could be died red it would be pretty awesome. Some risk it would be slightly purple because of dying a blue part red. I don’t have any experience with dying resin to know for sure.

I’ve started the firmware on the programmer. In test phase now and adding features as I go. Looking like end of January given other builds in the queue. 16Mbit cart supported first and then I’ll add the 128/256 cart support.

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mellott124 wrote:
I have an updated FormLabs print coming. And when I asked about red translucent prints they said they have new materials and colors coming in the new year.

Formlabs announced new color kits today. Red is one of them. Anyone got a Formlabs 2 printer?

KR155E wrote:

mellott124 wrote:
VB controller USB adapter housing design completed. Ordering the first prototypes now. Likely to be a spin but fingers crossed. 🙂

Super sweet! Looks pretty official.

Thanks. Parts are being made now. 5 sets on their way by end of the week. It only took about a day to design so not too bad. I’ll update again when I have assembled units.

VB controller USB adapter housing design completed. Ordering the first prototypes now. Likely to be a spin but fingers crossed. 🙂

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Well, that was easier than I thought. Here’s a small form factor USB adapter for the VB controller. I just played Hyper Fighting in Mednafen using my VB controller and the adapter.

I’m using all COTS parts here. I couldn’t have my own MCU boards fabricated/assembled for cheaper than I could buy them on Amazon. I’m also using VB repair parts for the connector. At this point there isn’t enough interest to warrant the several months design work and iterations on a 3D printed connector for this adapter. I have 12 of the connector parts from eBay. If interest goes beyond that then I’ll consider designing the connector like I did for the link cable.

I’ll be designing the adapter housing for this in the next week or two. Should have assembled VB controller USB adapters about mid to end of December. Also ordered a nice red and black USB cable to go along with the adapter to give it that VB feel.

If people are interested, let me know. I’ll send a private email out to those that already expressed interest.

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Nice job!!

ProjectVB.com is DogP’s site.

Updated PCBs have been ordered and should arrive in about 2 weeks.

Unfortunately, there’s no where near enough interest to warrant getting a batch of PCBs assembled. Understandable as there is no game support at this point. So the plan is to hand assemble about 10 cables. Probably won’t do more than that. About 1/2 of those will go free to some developers already identified. I’ll have about 5 units for people who want to get a cable and are willing to wait for a game to release which uses it. Once a game releases that uses the USB link cable, I’m guessing interest will peak and I’ll do a batch order then.

I’ll send emails out this week to people who have already contacted me expressing interest. Target to ship assembled cables is mid to end of December.

I have an updated FormLabs print coming. And when I asked about red translucent prints they said they have new materials and colors coming in the new year.

OK, page up detailing the build. Consider it a draft but I don’t expect it to change much. I’ll do some grammer/content edits over time.

Virtual Boy Wired Link Cable Build

Thanks for the feedback MK. Understand it may not work. I’ll get a baseline and we can go from there. Understand it’s possible we may need to wait for a new game that was designed to use the USB link cable. It’s a chicken and egg dilemma at this point and I’m willing to make the cable the egg.

Well boys and girls. Just had my first successful connection between two VBs over local Ethernet. Two VBs with two USB link cables connected to my PC. Then software performing serial-TCP connection. IP: 10.0.0.17 port 5001. One as server and another as client. Running DogP’s linktest.vb code on each VB. Streaming away like crazy!

The linktest.vb code is the simplest test because it sits there with one unit as master and another as slave. Games like TicTacToe and 3D Battlesnake actually ping pong back and forth between master and slave. This is going to require the USB link cable to be aware of which game is being played in order to stay sync’d with the VBs. More work to do in firmware there.

Those games are also the easiest because there is source code I can refer to. Any new game should also be easy to integrate the USB link cable code as we can define the protocol. The two tough ones are going to be Mario Tennis 2 Player and Hyper Fighting as I need to reverse engineer how they’re using the link cable. Bought some new gear to do exactly that but it might take awhile.

So at this point I’m going to continue working and hopefully get the games up and running. This USB Link cable is going to come with open-source Arduino based code so that it can be upgradable and modified by end users, if they so desire. That way it can continue to grow with new games and improve with programmers who are better than me.

I’m also going to start taking a preorder email list for people who are interested. No money yet, just emails to start a line and gauge interest. PM me if you may be interested in a cable and how many. Like I mentioned previously I need have the PCBs assembled from my board house so they’ll come in one big batch. Pricing currently looks like its going to be around $65 for an assembled cable. Trying to reduce that but currently that’s where it sits.

Picture of the server and client programs streaming data below as well as another one of my messy lab. Still lots of work to do but finally hit that first successful test. 🙂

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If people are interested in just the shells, I can send those out too. You’d need to source all your own parts to build the rest of the cable. Once I can get a how-to up on my website to build the cable then I’ll start offering just the shells. Give me about a week or so and I’ll try to get a page up. Not exactly a DIY kit but if you’re willing to do some ground work you can get a cheaper cable made for yourself.

Price will change slightly based on number of units I’ve ordered but currently they would be $12.50 per connector. You’d need 2 to build a complete cable. Plus shipping as well. Keep in mind that I’m in the U.S. and shipping overseas may cost you more than the connectors.

TheHandsomeDan wrote:
So, how might one procure one of these awesome looking little units? And how much would they set a person back?

Hi,

I’ll be doing preorders soon. Just finished the first testing of v0.2 firmware last night. I’ll be building a second unit this weekend hopefully. Then I’m ready for some game testing. Even if some of the games don’t work over a network, the cable will be functional. Games may need to be written specifically for networked play. We’ll see.

No price yet. I’ll work on that. I will be having these assembled by my board house so I’ll need to know how many units are needed up front based on preorders. I have to get away from hand assembling everything otherwise I end up with no time for new projects. 🙂

Kevin

pinmagic wrote:
Check it out – 2 pages of stuff, including t-shirts, posters, magnets, repro boxes, and even a repro SI manual. Interestingly, the SI manual’s description says “This is the Japanese version. The American translated version is also available.” I’ve written the seller to ask if the translated version looks like the Japanese version, and how to order it.

https://www.etsy.com/search?q=virtual%20boy

I’ve gotten that SI manual and some of the boxes. The scan quality isn’t great so be careful. Meaning the prints are from scanned imagery.

Morintari wrote:
mellott124:
since this cable has to hook up to a computer could we have 6 ft of cable?

It’s a 6′ cable now. Extensions should work too.

Got mine today too. Looks great. The other boxes also look great. Thanks!

OK, finally got back to this. Got the board up and running and I’m switching back and forth between player 1 (master) and player 2 (slave) modes via a terminal program on the PC. Streaming data to/from a VB running DogP link cable test code on a Flashboy+, and my PC. Still some kinks to work out but getting closer to putting two VBs on the network to see what the games do.

There’s two LEDs on the board. One of them glows red or blue depending on whether you’re player 1 or player 2. The other LED pulses amber if a byte is coming from the VB to the board, or it pulses green if a byte is being sent from the board to the VB. Those will stick through the connector housing to give you an idea of what’s going on with the USB link cable.

I’ll need to spin the board to make some assembly updates and fix a connector flip (doh!).

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