I have a vape that’s a VP vape and i’d like to ask on how i can run some games on it

[severedflowers]

since it has three, tetris, f22 top down arcade game and pac-man, maybe we could get a tomogochi or doom running on it? i wanna know how i can connect it to my pc, I have asked around Reddit and they had pointed to your blog about the windows vape

[ginbot86]

I noticed some threads on Reddit discussing such:

• https://www.reddit.com/r/hacking/comments/1edi26q/how_do_i_hack_this_to_put_doom_on_it/
• https://www.reddit.com/r/hacking/comments/1edze1h/update_the_correct_photo_was_replaced_by_a_glitch/

Given that the main chip in question is a blob-top/COB (chip on board) device, that will significantly hinder attempts to figure out what it is. However, the Bootleg Games wiki on Fandom says it's a Famiclone (Nintendo NES clone). Assuming that this is true, this opens and closes a lot of avenues for homebrew software development.

Doom (at least in its pure form) is almost certainly out of the question. However, it might be possible to inject custom NES ROMs into the SPI Flash chip, but the structure of the chip's data needs to be ascertained first. Connecting it to a PC, if it doesn't already show up, may mean that the only way to access the Flash chip's contents is by connecting it to a dedicated device like a universal programmer tool.

[Rea-XEVION]

I've got 3 of these v-play vapes and 3 Raz DC25000's, still need to get whatever universal debugger I can find on eBay between $10 and $60.
One thing I quickly noticed is that with the v-play's juice-sponge and coils removed there's enough space for 2x 18650's side by side, so I might try dumping as much as I can from it after learning how with the gutted Raz.

Edit, just noticed that all 3 v-play units run the gameplay at mildly different speeds. For example, 1 and 2 are barely out of sync where you don't notice until a good 10 or 12 seconds later, same for 2 and 3, but comparing 1 and 3 it's easy to notice the desync even just 3 or 4 seconds in.

[Rea-XEVION]

After having 2 v-plays taken apart and still gaming for a few days, I've noticed that changing screens in the vape mode menu just blanks the display when changing screens, same for entering and selecting a game to bring up the sound option. But when actually launching any game after saying yes/no so audio, it completely powers off the screen and backlight for a fraction of a second.
I won't be able to properly dig deep until I buy something more useful than a PICkit 3, but I have to wonder if the main processor is toggling into an A/V pass through mode for the famiclone... Since I have 3 and one's battery broke off, I might just start with "destructive investigation" by cutting one trace at a time, testing if it boots and plays, then repairing and moving on to the next.

If I can find any famiclone specific av traces, or even button traces, I'll try and bodge in an external controller or external av source (like a GameCube)

[Rea-XEVION]

I didn't notice this earlier with the "pcb trimming" v-play due to the fact I hadn't used it enough to change from the 100% juice image to the 90% image, but with the unit I refilled a couple times I just noticed it most likely uses the sram for keeping track of puff count.
When the battery positive wire came disconnected I decided not to solder it back on, but instead use my metal craft blade to temporarily jumper the connection for each use of the vape portion. In doing so, I noticed that what previously read as 80% battery and 0% juice was reset to 100 / 100, though just a moment later it caught up and became 80 battery /100 juice.

[ginbot86]

Thanks for the update. Some other vapes I've taken apart that use segmented LED screens seem to hold the vape counter in internal Flash (no external chips onboard), but I haven't dug too deep into where/how they're storing that data.

[LeojGH]

I don't know if it helps, but here are some pictures of the V-Play PCB and the model of the external SpiFlash chip (Winbond-25Q32JVSIQ). And what my programmer (CH341A) read from the chip. I am not familiar with these topics but reading your post about Reverse Engineering a Vape to customize the backgrounds of the screen, I was very attentive and then I was curious once I saw that these VPlay came out.






V-PLAY.zip

[ginbot86]

Thanks for the pictures and the SPI dump. A few observations: The USB-C port on its own board has only power and ground connections, so that would explain why connecting to a PC didn't do anything; I do see a bunch of programming/test pads on J1 (C/D/R = clock, data, reset) for some microcontroller on the board, probably U7; and the P0~P7 labeled pads seems like some kind of parallel data bus (maybe the LCD?).

I looked at the SPI Flash dump and couldn't see anything that immediately stood out to me. It doesn't look like there are any recognizable text strings, ROM file headers, and it might be encrypted or at least scrambled in some way. There's no empty space visible but there seem to be some patterns to the data inside.