Super Famicom Dev Unit ?

hey whatever happened to the old board ?

anyway, I need info about super famicom dev unit, there is this dude from NYC offered me a superfamicom dev machine which I've yet to get hold of any pics from him.

Its not the Ricoh and the guy said its genuine SFC nintendo unit, consist of SFC, 2 carts and hook ups to a dev box.

He wants $1500 for it, I aint want to get burned for second time, so more info from anyone who knows SFC and its dev units is greatly appreaciated.

I bought a lasabirdie Golf Club controller for Super famicom him 2 months ago and seem pretty legit fella, only to find I paid him too much, now there is a lasabirdie controller at Yahoo J for $250, I paid him nearly $500 :snipe:


thanks for any help
Ray

 

You mean this:



???

 

Hi Johnny, great pic!! Do you have pictures of the back of that Dev Unit??

The other 'brand' of official Dev Unit is the "Super Nintendo Emulator - SE". I've posted pics of this before, but in case the links have gone:


http://rpgd.emulationworld.com/fh/snesfront1.html
http://rpgd.emulationworld.com/fh/snesback.html

These are pics of some guy's one-of-two-units. The 'SE' unit is always referring to in the Dev Manual for the official way to develop Sound (MIDI port and sampler) and the LSI chips (Super FX, etc).

From what has been said on this board and both posts here, there should be a additional 'top-unit' to this. So I looked in one of my old snes mags (Super Play issue19), and there's a pic from a Nintendo R&D desk with a SNES on top of their 'SE', which has no joypad ports!! But check out the 386 their dev unit is hooked up to, with 5 1/4 inch floppy drives! ).
If you can post pics of whatever he has, I'd certainly appreciate it! :smt040


Definately request pics of the inside. That will tell you if you have any additional Daughter Boards for DSP-1, SA-1, GSU1or2 (Super FX1 or 2), SDD-1.

Though it's probably a silly point to make, but request if there's any software with it. It's the difference between it being a fully operational dev unit or simply a collector's item (though it's one hell of a collectors item! :-D )
I once saw 'SNES-SE' software listed on some console warez CD *many* years ago, but that's the last I saw of it

Good luck anyway!

-- FH

 

There is a third.....

 

I found that Dev Tower on Lingjr site ( http://www.sdk-team.com/ ). I suggest you to contact him for more info on that.

 

Hey Johnny, thanks for the info ! :smt023

I'll get in touch with Ling right away, probably still can get a dev kit from him.

But that offer from NYC probably will still be considered.




Ray

 

Thanks for sharing the info ! :smt023

I'll post all pics that dude promised me here later

Youre right there, I guess I'll ask if it comes with any software.
Though as you said, as a collectible its worth the money too.

Super play its a british super nintendo magazine is it ?
do you think you can scan that particular page containing the related info and pics ?

Thanks


Ray

 

I have two Super Famicom Dev. Units that have large cases like those.
-One is called SHVC Development System IS-CHARACTER
-and another called SHVC Development System IS-SOUND.

I don't have to say it but it is a nice pair.

In two weeks when I have a camera to take some pics with then you may ask me to share more detail than now. :smt033

 

Apologies for the double-posting, I've got no idea how that happened!

Sure, I'll try to get that Super Play scanned in asap.

Hey, arsenal - you have the IS units?!!! rayer: rayer:
Man, I envy you!! :smt023 Pics of the inside of those would be cool!! ;-)

It may be of interest that there's some snes unit pics here:
http://www.geocities.co.jp/Playtown-Spade/2983/RARE.HTML Do a search for 'is-debugger', and you'll find 5 types of development gear there (all in the same table column). Man, I'm really shocked at how much hardware SFC Dev did spawn!! :smt103

Did the IS/SE units need a PC card, say like PSY-Q's SCSI card, for it to function??

-- FH

 

Wasn't a lot of the development for the Super Famicom/NES done on Apple IIGS systems? That would be some fun software to get a hold of...

Incidently, why is there so little known about pre-Playstation/N64/Saturn dev hardware and software? What's the deal with the info blackout on this stuff?

 

Yeah, old dev info/pics seem hard to come by. That Ling chappie has piccies of a couple of PC Engine dev kits on his site.

 

I wonder why I have *NEVER* seen a NES dev kit even though the NES had a gazillion of games developed for it :smt017

And I'd also like to see what the Neo Geo devkits look like, bet there are none 'in the wild' :smt022

 

Here's the scan of the Nintendo R&D desk:
http://rpgd.emulationworld.com/fh/nin.html
I can see the IS-Debugger with SFC on top of it with no joyports. To the right a SFC with a 'red banner' across/below the cart slot. Would that be a SFC Partner in front of it? And is that a NES dev unit just next to it?????
And just think, it's all plugged into a state-of-the-art 286 PC! :smt043

They were designing Super Metroid when Super Play were there, and I think that's room-design on that scrap paper (harder to tell on the scan).


Yeah, I'd heard that Wolfenstein's non time-critical code was made on the AppleIIGS with Orca C. There were a few other 65816 C compilers around at the time, one for the Mac (Factor 5 I think used this?!), and some 'l33t' snes scene ppl had it but wouldn't part with it. There was some guy on the 'net that made a snes C compiler and I think he sold it for around $5,000. I also think, in later snes years, Intelligent Systems released a C compiler for the snes, but it's no longer on their ftp (the GBA scene kinda tipped nintendo that people were accessing their ftp and cracking their tools :smt022 ). BTW: if anyone's generous enough to donate the IS-CHARACTER software for the S-NES, I wouldn't say no!
I would be willing to trade for the ISAS/ISLK tools!


I guess for 8-bit/16-bit machines, it was cheaper for some developers to approach electronic companies and make them a custom dev unit from hacked from console and cart (I've lost the link of the Ballz DSP2 in-house 'dev card'!! :smt043 ), but that spawned the market for cheaper mass-produced dev units from PsyQ/Snsys (even Rare initally used their own developed Dev stuff called GLAM). they ended up being more popular than the official kits.

I'm still amazed by the Master System Dev Unit shown on the main page - totally rare and obscure!!

-- FH (man, sorry if I rambled!)

 

Heh, that's my unit. Sorry for cleaning it AFTER the photos have been taken ;P

I did not get any software with it (neither with my Virtual Boy Dev Kit), so it would be nice if anyone had it and would like to share

I also remember seeing a photo of a desk with a Emulator-SE in an interview with a SNES developer. Not sure where I saw it, though...

 

Hey KR155E! Yeah, I never found the wwwboard you posted those pics on again to ask permission to spread the pics. Plus, I think I did try to email you once.

Also, thanks for the ROM dump you once did of the SE BIOS, the ICEU10.BIN! I did manage to get some useful code from it! http://rpgd.emulationworld.com/fh/iceu10.html. I never wanted to release without (remembering) the name of the dumper - seems fair. Did you say you could some of the other EPROMs from inside the unit???! :-D
Also, arsenal? I dunno if you could dump any of the EPROMs from your units? I'd be more than happy to share any findings with y'all!!

Well the only IS software I have is the CGB-EMULATOR,DEBUGGER,CHARACTER, and they all require to be able to detect the hware in order for them to install - or install fully. Same is true for the ISF (n64 gang flash rom) and ISV (err, can't remember atm!). I have the ISAS/LK. That does need hware, but I did get a friend to 'alter' (heh) the thing, so..... That actually is Nintendo's official Assember/Linker for, amongst 'others', the v810 and 65816 (though PsyQ's wins IMO! ;-) )
I'm a bit unsure about what I can/cannot post/link here and what the moderators will/won't allow, but for the moment, those with the nin-boxes mentioned on this thread can email for further info.

-- FH

 

FH:

Isnt most of that stuff available from intsys public ftp/ wayback machine?

Shiggsy

 

It may still be, but I recently found on the updated IS site, that you now require a usr/pwd to log onto the NTSC development site to access them. I could be wrong.

-- FH

 

Now that AntiPasta mentioned, I'd really like to see a Neo Geo dev unit...
Actually, I wish I was rich and could have a Neo Geo and a handful of games :smt043

 

If you think about how many developers deved for SNK, you should come up with like 5 companies. Assuming everyone got 5 kits and SNK got 10, thats 35 kits ever. We know that in modern times, Playmore uses MAME hehe. How many people developed for Dreamcast? Like 50, and anyone with $20,000(?) could buy themselves a kit. Thats why theres only been a few Neo dev items spotted, none of them by yours truely.

 

THis thread can go to Development hardware discussion now :smt033