Odd WonderSwan Unit (Dev Unit?)

So I recently got this WonderSwan unit and if anyone has ever seen a WonderSwan before they will know that this is not a standard one.

On the face, the text is in gold instead of silver/grey like normal ones. It also has no power switch or spots on the board to accommodate one. It doesn't have any tabs for a battery either. The screws are standard Phillips, with two of the holes being unpopulated.

At this point you may think it's just a display unit, but this one has a PATA port on the back. The board is also different from a retail (can't open my retail for pictures). See pictures and tell me what you think this is.

 

never seen one of those before very nice

 

So it's like a DTP-H110? Does anyone know what the other half of the unit looks like? I've never been able to find anything about official WonderSwan dev stuff outside of the WonderWitch.

 

Please excuse me to up this topic, but where did you found this tool? I'm currently searching for a swan devkit, and you are actually my first track to maybe find one

 

Could it be a store display unit?

 

No brains in that thing.. It is just like a monitor and keyboard only.

 

This find was pure luck, I wish I could help you find a dev kit as I would like one as well, but this is all I have from it.

But why would it have a PATA port?

I noticed that as well, I'm guessing that the software was sent over the PATA port.

 

It's just a standard 40 pin IDC connector, the fact that PATA also used it is probably coincidental.

 

I don't know much about the wonderswan myself, but judging on the insides, it looks like its a test system. THIS DOES NOT MAKE IT A DEV DEVICE!

my guess is that the pata connects to a specialty card, PRESUMED ISA SLOT CARD as those were commonly used at the time (SEE U64 board for SGI Computers), where a development unit would feed data to the device for testing. This would simulate the device actually in use, using the ISA card as the actual circuitry of the system and the wonderswan was just for visual / interaction with the game.

 

This is clearly an "empty" shell used with a bigger box both linked with a flat cable (like for SCSI or IDE) and all the intelligence is inside the box. And generally only devkit does such a thing, so this "dumb" swan must be found near a devkit..

It is a card that will only give the status of the input button, play sound and display something. The IDC connector is like you say to connect to a box or a board (I doubt for ISA, if it was there is more chance that it is in PCI instead of ISA)

I suspect the only chip on the board (U1) to be the audio codec for the speaker.

 

Thanks to all for the information! So it's what I thought it was. It would be interesting to see the rest of the unit. I wonder why no other WonderSwan dev/test stuff has made it into the wild yet.

 

This is for now the only picture of such a swan I never found on the net. Maybe there are other, I hope there are other!

So you find it in the US? That's right Bandai wanted to launch the Swan on the US market

 

Yes, it was from a US seller.

 

Ok thanks, I don't want to bother you with this, the seller is a video game specialist and generally have some extraordinary product like this one? It would be interesting to track this device life and know from where he got it...

 

WELL.... I did find this. Some people in germany tried to make a flashcart some time back. not sure if this is a schematic of an Actual Wonderswan Cart or their own design.

Accoridng to the site: NOT compatable with WonderWitch, Requires USB flashing of the chips, and will have it's own SDK. more info needed.

Link: http://wiki.portablegaming.de/WSC_Card

 

And without the Bandai chip this is pretty useleless. (I don't know why one of my reply is "waiting for moderator check..")

 

There was a complete WS devkit for sale on Yahoo auctions in October last year, I think I saved the pictures somewhere...

 

If you find it it would be nice to see.

 

Here is the only mirror I could find of the auction:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:rW7lStP0MMQJ:www.79door.com.hk/bid_product_Details.asp%3FAuctionId%3De127576026%26yclass%3D9931+%E2%96%A0WS%E3%83%AF%E3%83%B3%E3%83%80%E3%83%BC%E3%82%B9%E3%83%AF%E3%83%B3%E9%96%8B%E7%99%BA%E7%94%A8%E6%A9%9F%E6%9D%90%E3%82%BB%E3%83%83%E3%83%88+WonderSwan%E3%83%90%E3%83%B3%E3%83%80%E3%82%A4/C+ACQT+-+Yahoo!%E3%82%AA%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AF%E3%82%B7%E3%83%A7%E3%83%B3&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=firefox-a


And here are the pictures: