Virtual Boy on TV with Intelligent Systems Video Boy

Summary

Intelligent Systems Video Boy VUE The Video Boy plays Nintendo Virtual Boy games on a TV or monitor. As with many of Nintendo's development tools, it was made by Intelligent Systems. These were used to record video or screenshots; it's said that this particular unit was used by the venerable Nintendo Power. Contents: Exterior Front panel The Virtual Boy inputs are on the top and front of the unit. From left to right: cartridge slot, link cable port, and controller port. There's also a red power LED. A cartridge goes in with the label facing down; it plugs directly into a Virtual Boy main board. Back panel Note that the name shown here is "Video Adapter VUE". "Video Boy" appears nowhere on this device, but it is found in the instructions as "VIDEO-BOY (VUE)" and on the Intelligent Systems site as ビデオボーイ or videoboy.html. The AV multi-out is PAL, which is 50 FPS like the Virtual Boy; this avoids a more complicated and lossy scan conversion to ~60 FPS NTSC. The unit came with a DB9 to 3xRCA cable for the RGB OUT; I haven't tested it, lacking a monitor that takes raw RGB. The SCANNER port connects to a development headset; I don't have one. DIP switches This row of switches, SW1, is exposed on the bottom of the unit. The initial setting was: 1 off, 2 on, 3 on, 4 on, 5 off, 6 off, 7 off, 8 on. 7 and 8 control which display is shown: 8 controls the left, rendered in Virtual Boy red, 7 is the right, rendered in green. With both 7 and 8 on, left and right are combined, this was intended as anaglyph 3D. See the video output below. Switching 5 on prevents anything from working. I didn't notice any effect from switching the others. There's an image of the instructions which describes the switches, unfortunately it's low resolution. I think it says "don't use" for 5 and 6, and 1-4 are for setting some integer, "1=MSB, 4=LSB, ON=0, OFF=1". There are nearby unpopulated jumper pads, and a set of pads marked "CL" which seem to be cut traces. This may have been hardwired when the sw...