Anyone know what a proto AGB looked like, is this it?

I have stumbled across someone who suggests he might have access to what he assumes is a prototype Game Boy Advance.

This particular person has never given me cause to doubt them in the past and if it's not a proto what is it?

At present I cannot upload images, but I shall try to in the very near future.

According to the current owner, it is a PCB (officially stamped Nintendo) and it's roughly the size of a piece of A4 paper. It has a section in the middle where an LCD should be, however it is not present. Instead there is a video out (have not been told what) plus there is a break out cable which could go off to an IS capture unit (not confirmed).

The controls are all little switches rather than anything final, so if it is a prototype it might be very early indeed.

I realise this is a pretty limited description, however the owner assures me it is genuine and is confident it is a proto. Neither of us can find anything online about it at all.

Has anyone ever stumbled across anything similar for the AGB? If it IS a prototype PCB, would anyone be able to give an approximate value?

The current owner is more interested in obtaining information than what it is worth, hence this not going into the "Marketplace evaluation thread".

Thanks :thumbsup:

 

Wait a second.

http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showpost.php?p=233468&postcount=4

Something similar to this? If so then babu would be the one to ask.

 

I've seen one of two appear on ebay over the years, can't remember what they fetched tho :/

 

Thanks Cez & OE! I'll have to check with the current owner, but that looks almost exactly as he described it.

Value wise I guess it's dependant on demand as the AGB was not the most popular unit on the block - If there have been a few to appear, then it's not as rare as first thought, but a nice item none the less. I'll get in contact with Babu and see what he paid and also some specs (unless he sees this and decides to post info: hint, hint!)

 

Babu's is the TS1 board isnt it?

Here's the TS2 board with a display:

http://shiggsy.gbadev.org/unit.php?unit=10

Shiggsy

 

Brilliant, that's even better! ;-) So it's a Nintendo TS1 development board.; Any idea of value? (Again I apologise for it being in the wrong thread, but ANY information is welcome not just value)

 

I saw a GBC dev board of the type with the screen (ie TS2, but for GBC) that sold for ~$500 on ebay a year ago.

GBA dev boards are more common (but not common).

I'd pay $200-400 for a dev board. Maybe it would fetch more on ebay, maybe not.
I think a dev board with a screen will sell for more than one without it.

Shiggsy

 

to be honest I'm not sure.. the only difference I can see between yours and mine is the display.. never tried powerig it also as I'm not sure what it needs. the rumor is that any SNES PSU would do.. but I havn't dared try. Also I'm 99% sure that I could connect a display from a AGB to it for output toterwise I need to find one of those wideboys..

 

Oh wait, I just checked the picture of your board and it is the same as one of the boards I have pictured on my site. Its just that no display is connected.

I think we need to call in subbie to tell us what the TS1 board looks like.

Shiggsy

 

Yeah I guess he would know
Also remember that I havn't checked the software yet. Might have some info on the differences?

did a quick check and mine sure is a TS2

 

did a quick reading and found two text files describing differences
among things changed
IR communication function was removed
CPU internal WRAM was decreased from 48KB to 32KB
...

New stuff incl.
256KB external WRAM
serial communication
UART
CGB compatible serial communications.
...

the other file was a how to upgrade TS1->TS2

 

Better and better information all the time. Now I need to go back to the owner and establish which PCB revision he has.

 

http://gameboy.ign.com/articles/083/083761p1.html
IGN did a review of the kit when it first got it back in 2000. Shows some screens of software running on it, too.

 

Great article, also interesting to see that IGN picked up even prior to launch the main gripe with the system, "no backlight" which was the only thing I disliked about the original AGB.

Thanks for hunting that down.

 

Hunt it down? Its been linked from my website (see link above) for 5 years

Shiggsy

 

Well, I for one hadn't visited your site prior to seeing your post - sometimes great sources of information can go unrecognised & unviewed. ;-)

 

I've never seen the board sans LCD (only gotten to play with the ones with the LCD). They're cool pieces of kit.

Now, who has the ROM code for the Yoshi tech demo?

-hl718

 

a little movie of it.. http://www.filecabi.net/view.php?file=yoshi_xvid.avi don't know if it works (it wont show up for me atleast.. will try to find a better host)

 

Couldn't get the video to run either - just hung my PC up!

 

same here for some reason >=/
you can grab it here now (if it doesn't work it's because some DNS might not be up to date yet)