Probably one of the oldest references Nintendo has made to the VB was in Wario Ware 1 on GBA, where one of the microgames is Mario Clash.

I wish Nintendo would put all their VB games on 3DS already. Wario Land alone is worth it.

Thanks for all the helpful replies everyone! It’s very comforting to know that the blurring around the edges is normal. Thanks for the IPD instructions DogP.

I tried looking into the Virtual Boy without the red covers in place, was pretty hard with the air from the mirrors hitting my eyes, haha. It wasn’t quite as red either.

Now if I could just get some replacement ribbon cables. I’d love to practice the delicate soldering more using my broken VB. I’ve got some really tiny soldering tips coming in the mail. Individual wires is an extremely tedious and painful process.

Virtual ROB is cool and all, but what really caught my attention was evil Peach from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. Absolutely fantastic game that was. That’s an awesome costume, way better than Daisy.

Ohhhhh ok, that makes a whole lot more sense now. I usually have to crank the IPD all the way to one side to get all 4 corners straight in in view.

Also, since this is somewhat related, is the very outer edge of the screen (all the way around) supposed to be blurry? With the focus set to make the center of the screen sharp, the outer areas can be a bit hard to see without moving my head. Is this normal? Are my screens “out of alignment” like the Nintendo page says?

That page doesn’t really explain what should result from a proper IPD setting. Is it supposed to make the screen easier on the eyes? Are there some graphics that can be referenced to ensure the IPD is setup right? I don’t know how else to explain it. It’s kind of like trying to verify the size of an object. Well, without something to reference against, like a ruler or a larger object with a known size, it’s impossible to know how big the target object is.

I fully support that idea! I’d be down for 4 ribbon cables, in case the previous two don’t survive surgery. I’ve never done any “PCB” fabrication ordering, I wouldn’t know where to start organizing such a thing, so I’d only be able to help pitch in for a group buy.

I don’t have a hot air gun, maybe just clipping the legs off then heating/lifting each side of the grounding pins will work. Are the pins for the ribbon cable socket the right thickness for the ribbon cable?

Where would you buy a fiberglass pen? How do you clean away the bits of fiberglass (if it works like an eraser)? Doesn’t sound particularly safe, ugh.

Also, how the heck do you get a ball of solder going without the ribbon cable traces getting moved and disturbed (or worse, the ball adhering instantly)? Do you need a specific kind of flux?

And, about the supposedly untouched ribbon cable on the right display of my VB. I must confess that (I’m pretty sure) it was pulled off at some point, forget why… I stuck it back on. It isn’t peeling but it barely works. Most of the time it’s just a black screen on the right display. I understand ribbon cables are delicate and break easily. Is there any chance this cable is still good? I think I’ll just get two ribbon cables off you just to be safe anyway.

When do you think you could print new ribbon cables? I’d rather get this VB fixed than sell it off for parts, that’s a bit wasteful to me.

Thanks for the replies guys. Yeah a new ribbon cable definitely looks the way to go, the only hard part would be getting the ribbon cable socket off the main board. Well, that and getting a ribbon cable I guess haha. I have no way of printing something like that, I’d have to wait for someone else to start making them. Let me know if you get that printer working again.

I did actually try to use the original ribbon cable for the left display, it’s just I didn’t have a fiberglass pen or anything so I tried to burn away the plastic, the cable got really mangled and was hard to work with. I tried to make the best of it but I gave up after that and switched to wires, which at the end of it all, weren’t actually better than the ribbon cable… I could try the soldering method again on the other cable, but I figure the same thing will happen again. Those ribbon cables are extremely, extremely fragile, they don’t take heat very well.

I need to find a thinner tip for my iron some time… That’s part of my problem here. It can easily touch two traces on those ribbon cable solder pads.

I couldn’t imagine playing Pokemon on Virtual Boy. Even Red and Blue take hundreds of hours to get any significant enjoyment out of them. There’s also the ability to save whenever and its pick-up and play factor, all things that don’t work on Virtual Boy. I mean, it’s a decent console, but Pokemon is not a good game for it…

Apparently this port is based on the PC Engine version.

At least you mentioned Mega Drive. Most people think SF2 was only ported to the almighty SNES.

I imagine the bad ribbon cables thing will make the Virtual Boy rarer as people inevitably throw away their units.

It sounds like you guys have information on the display pinout, may I have it if you do? I’d like to better understand what the signal lines do.

It’s encouraging to see these displays take that kind of “abuse” and still work. Perhaps my Virtual Boy can live again, if I can just dedicate several afternoons to soldering like… 62 wires… For both displays.

I think I see what I need to solder on the display board… But how does it go on the FFC connector at the main board? Do I just solder one wire for the two “double traces” which are probably ground or voltage? Do I just determine the wires needed on the display board by the number of contacts on the FFC connector?

(I don’t know what you guys call them, but technically the black ribbon cable connectors are for flat flex cables, FFC)

Again thanks for the words of encouragement and your answers to my questions, guys. If I get this Virtual Boy working, I intend to use it. I’ll celebrate with Wario Land.

Oh yeah I forgot to ask earlier… How many wires are required for one display? I counted 31, not sure if I included the “double traces” or not. I guess I should depend on the FFC connector for that haha, but I just want to be sure.

Absolutely incredible soldering job, hats off to you man! The cherry on the cake is that your VB works now!

Sad thing is I will have to do this for my own Virtual Boy. I have kynar wire, but I’m also thinking of doing it with IDE wire, mostly because IDE comes in a nice ribbon cable-like arrangement, unless you peel wires off. That and I hate stripping kynar wires, the insulation never wants to let go. The downside though is IDE can break rather easily, kynar is pretty tough.

Any suggestions for soldering to the FFC connector on the main board? Did you just angle the board so you’re solder right onto the back panel of the connector? How often did the other parts nearby get in the way?

Thank you for the help, it encourages me to pick up this project again and wire up the displays “the hard way”, since there might be some guarantee the system is not totally screwed.

What I meant by main board damage is, can shorting lines somewhere on the display board connections, damage the main board in some way? Or no?

Also, can somebody show me specifically which traces have to be connected on the display board? And how they connect to the FFC connector on the main board? I just want to be sure. I think there are two traces that do the same function (probably ground). Also, it seems like there are three traces on each side of the display board edge that don’t do anything… Is this correct?

Yes one of the ribbon cables is totaled. How creased does one ribbon cable have to get before it doesn’t work anymore?

What I’m trying to ask is how durable are the displays? And is it possible that the main board can be damaged in a way that it can’t output to the display boards? Should I bother attempting a bypass surgery on the one display to start? I don’t want to bother if the display boards can be damaged easily.