I've been refurbishing a few Doctor V64 units and noticed that what I presume is a date stamp on the controller PCB actually precedes the launch of the Nintendo 64 in Japan. [GALLERY=media, 2543]IMG_3200 by Shane Battye posted Mar 3, 2018 at 8:41 PM[/GALLERY] [GALLERY=media, 2536]IMG_3193 by Shane Battye posted Mar 3, 2018 at 8:40 PM[/GALLERY]Possible date stamp on a V64 controller PCB 96.01.03 which in Japanese format would be 3rd January 1996 What is also unusual is that I have two second generation V64s (the grey highlights models) that both show this date stamp, however, a first generation model of mine shows 96.12.20. [GALLERY=media, 2538]IMG_3195 by Shane Battye posted Mar 3, 2018 at 8:40 PM[/GALLERY] [GALLERY=media, 2539]IMG_3196 by Shane Battye posted Mar 3, 2018 at 8:40 PM[/GALLERY]First generation Doctor V64 with controller PCB marking suggesting manufacturing in December of 1996. Now, it's possible Bung Enterprises just had an abundance of stock and were using PCBs from the original parts bin on their second gen models. Or that, given the legal scrutiny they were under at the time, perhaps they believed they could suggest their device in some way preceded Nintendos, mitigating any patent claims. Whichever the case it is interesting that the gen 1 model shows a date less than 6 months post N64 launch in Japan and less than 1 month after the 64DD first public appearance; with a system that essentially functioned by the 64DD port. Pretty impressive turnaround time in my opinion. Anybody have any insights on this?
That secondary PCB may not have been specifically produced for this product, therefore it could have been produced well before. You should probably look at the other parts/chips and plastic casings and get their dates. And what is that PCB, can we have a photo where we see all of it?
I can't see similar dates on the remaining PCBs. It's possible They were produced much earlier. The system itself uses a NES chip
...or it was such a basic design that it could be made before the rest of the product was finalized. This board only deals with control input from the device's buttons, I'd say that qualifies as far enough removed from the N64's implementation details to not bother delaying it too much.
The two I have open right now are a V64-2 and 3 and are marked 96.01.03.CJX. In 1996 HK was British and didn't use Japanese format dates. Clearly the v64 was designed by Japanese terminators sent from the future by Sony to destroy the N64 in it's infancy so they could dominate the video game market. What does that logic by the IDC connector do? Anything special or just fix a busted part?
Oh the boards were probably built on the mainland so Chinese date format might be more precise. Yes, I like your Sony theory, I knew they could never be trusted. Not sure about that chip
In 96, the links between HK and the mainland were pretty limited and most of that stuff was still being made actually in HK. Typically dates in HK were written in British format - dd.mm.yy or yyyy - the mainland uses the other way around with the year first (well, the canonical format is something like 2018年3月5日, but on PCBs and the like people typically just use the numbers) - the Japanese format is similar, although the year is sometimes in nengo (I.E. era name) format so today would be 平成３０年３月５日 - generally they only used yyyy.dd.mm on products that were going to be exported to the US.
The mainboard says March 1997 (0397). So the product certainly wasn't available for purchase at the very least before April 1997, but most likely even a few months later.
