Super Metroid Proto Board Found?

I always thought this is the "best before" date, for this kind of batteries. I might be wrong, but this could mean the batteries are even old than March '94.

 

Ah my mistake, didn't see the shot with all 3 boards in there.

I don't think lithium cell batteries had a 'use by' date as such, like what AA batteries do. Pretty sure the code you see on the battery is there so the manufacturer knows when it was manufactured in case there's a problem with the batch.

 

Lithium do have a use by date, but on the battery itself its the manufacturing date.

 

This is supposedly an Akumajo Dracula prototype. What you guys think?

PIC HERE
(I assume the barcode paper was added by him to protect the ROM)

Same 94/3 battery and the game was released in February 93.

 

I hope that's legit. Why do all these long boards have a watch battery? Does it save something?

 

The battery is there for SRAM game saving, just like a retail cart. Some development boards came with the battery pre-installed, so the presence of battery on a prototype of a game that doesn't have a save feature doesn't mean anything.

 

http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,3158.0.html

Here is a post by me which contains the most info online about Super Metroid prototype footage. Many users that know SM in and out added a bunch of info about cut features through the games data & further insight. Should be an interesting read & look if you are into Super Metroid development.

 

Yet another high profile game on a long board without any information about its origins. These are highly dubious, and without information on where these were acquired from, it is safest to assume these are just someone burning chips onto some extra boards they happened to have just so they could play the game. I've seen a few Dracula X prototypes, and they are all on standard four-chip boards.

 

Yeah, if it smells like bullshit....it's probably bullshit.

Case in point, this guy gets nothing but first party and well known titles. Plus a prototype of Rendering Ranger, one of the rarer games out there.

That just doesn't happen. Never.

 

Has anybody tried to ask him to come here and tell us more? All I know is that he's French.

 

Going through the comments on the protos, a few have asked. But he never answered, at least not publicly.

 

It depends on the game - those boards have 9 sockets - 8 of them take EPROMS and the last one is for an SRAM. That battery is there to provide power for the SRAM if it's installed.