Hi all, I have recently obtained what I believe to be a prototype duke controller. I haven't spent much time with it yet, but the controller shell is a shiney black, it has no jewel and doesn't look like its ever had one fitted unfortunately. Also worth noting are the ports in the memory card slots are much different to retail, a 'door' on the back of the controller that you need to remove a screw to access, along with a different break away connector to retail. Luckily I have this piece too! Oh also there is a sticker that goes onto say about the device has not been approved by the FCC, along with a FW rev label. All the buttons are black, unlike the retail, also there is no text set into the front of the controller, ie Microsoft. Anyone know anything about these or seen another? This is the first I have ever seen. Pictures coming once I get chance. :thumbsup:
Hi Kev, Pretty sure its a genuine Duke, its exactlly the same as the retail duke shape wise, just alot different, will get some pics up in the next hour or so, would love to know abit about it.
Ive seen one before as you described, not certain when they were handed out though. Early Duke controllers were called Dakotas, but they had a Green jewel and such, which were sent out with early-ish (after Alpha anyway) dev kits and some retail displays. Those show up from time to time, but Ive only seen one of the jewel-less controllers online.
Borman, Can't say in all my years of being very drawn in by the Xbox I have ever seen one of these before, deffinatly an oddity, do you have any idea where you might have seen another? it would be great if there was any information regarding it. Yeah I know what you mean about the Dakota controllers, seen a good few of those around over the years, this is considerably different though. Someone I spoke to seemed to think they came with some early black debug kit, unsure how true this is though. ------------------------------------- Anyway heres some pics for you guys. Sorry the pics aren't great, I haven't had chance to clean this so its abit grubby! Also lighting in the room was low at the time of pics and I really don't have time to do much better at the moment, but enjoy anyway. Thanks for looking all, any info is much appreciated as I haven't been able to dig much up.
Yep, thats exactly what I expected. There was one for sale either on here or Xbox scene many moons ago.
Interesting another one was sold on, never saw that for whatever reason.. On the condition side of things, it looks much worse in the pics than it actually is, it is in desperate need of a good clean and I think most of the 'marks' you see in the pics will be gone. Unfortunately the flash did an excellent job of making it look pretty poor, it does have some marks which clearly won't come off, but it will look 100x better after a good clean up.
Yes sorry about that, will get some pics soon of the memory card ports. There is abit of confusion though, the slots don't have doors, the door is the one pictured on the back of the controller. I assume it will reveal a port for flashing firmware or simillar. The memory card slots are odd though, will try for pictures soon. :thumbsup:
I see the door you mean now, i'm guessing it hides an ISP or JTAG header to upgrade the firmware on the Atmel AVR, as according to Wikipedia the Xbox controller uses an AVR:- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmel_AVR#Atmel_AVR_usage If you ever decide to open it please take pictures as it would be great to know what model AVR Microsoft decided to use (It might be a custom part but it would be nice to know for sure) Perhaps this is wishful thinking, but if its a standard AVR we might be able to decap a standard Xbox controllers chip, read the contents, and then produce our own Xbox compatible controller chips with 100% compatibility?
Id be interested to hear what its for, simply because the fact that retail Xbox controllers work fine in an Alpha kit, which was designed more for the hammerhead, so I cant imagine the retail controller and yours being too different, at least software/firmware wise.
Guys I had two of these and actually sold them on these very forums a few years back. Where did I get them? Off a liquidation site called www.firebuy.com back in 2002.
Nope... Here's why: They use an ATMEL three ports hub chip which is likely AVR based (hence what Wikipedia says) along with an custom ST Microelectronics chip (could be anything but it's very likely to be ARM based) as controller processor. The ST chip even works fine as controller without the ATMEL chip if you rewire it correctly (but then the memory card ports will no longer work for obvious reasons). The XBOX controller "s" also use that design on the early versions. Late ones had a single chip which has both controller and USB hub on a single part. I don't know who made that chip because I don't own any of the newer controllers. :shrug:
