Context: I am on a personal agenda to backup all my games myself. In this search I landed on the Open Source Cartridge Reader (OSCR) it was expensive so I held off until a few months ago when I could finally afford it.
When I got it, I also bought every adapter I needed including the Virtual Boy one, which comes as a Kit. I didn’t think it looked bad, which is why I ordered it. But I held off on making since I started getting cold feet.
Today however I got the courage to try and… it was awful. 60 teeny tiny pins needed to be aligned and individually soldered. It was setup so a skilled micro solder could doing the job in an hour or so… it took me 4 hours and scouring the floor finding pins which fell. Let alone unclogging holes which were accidentally soldered.
However after testing my patience and redoing the last step 3-5 times. It works!!!
Now I can play Jack Bros without a VB, and Viper on 3DS is amazing.
Shoutout to Save The Hero Builders. I got everything from them and they were extremely helpful with a noob like me.
Tight! I had a VB, but I don’t think it lasted a year.
It was really fun though as a kid.
I don’t care for VR at all as an adult though.
Kinda interesting thinking back on that.
Kid me goes ‘oh neat!’ adult me goes ‘ug, can we just go to a park or build something instead’
How did it break?
Virtual Boys are sadly fragile systems. Specifically the displays. They are glued down and the adhesive is corrosive and failing to hold up. Getting mine repaired soon.
I wold mine when the 3DS was about to be released. Since it was still in perfect condition it seems I made the right choice while it was still good.
(I thought the rotating mirror or whatever would wear down)
Those have been the more reliable components on mine 🥲