US Version of N64 64DD has been found !

@ASSEMbler

Do you know from which time span these units were? Would be interesting to know at which time Nintendo worked on the US units.

The stickers on the unit in this thread show some interesting differences to the japanese retail versions I know: The serial starts with "NDJ", retail units start with "DJ". The sticker below the serial is also very different, it says "DISK DRIVE" instead of "64DD" and the copyright range is from 1996 to 1997 instead of 1999 so I would say that this unit is definitely from before the official Japanese release.

 

hmm, that tv's very familiar. plus, the opeth poster. "big collector", "youtube chanel"... Stupid Game Sacks!

Nice find, a little excited to know more about this! Waiting for the video and flying out of here before spoilers! (sorry to not contribute to the post in any significant way )

 

seems like it's from the 97 conference held in seattle in April. "On April 3–4, 1997, Nintendo of America hosted a Developer's Conference in Seattle, WA where a surprise overview was delivered by Nintendo Developer Support staff Mark Deloura about the 64DD.[6]"

 

This unit looks like one that can only read retail disks... except there's none that could support such thing, there's no US games.

Well honestly the only cheap way to check a blue disk's contents is a blue disk drive + 64drive using my dumper.
That said I think you should dump the IPL using my IPL dumper on a 64drive or something. This is rare as hell.

 

Very interesting find!

Just speculation: Couldn't this be simply a dev DD in an early retail case? Nintendo often presented dev hardware in retail shells for their shows. Plus it would really make no sense to show a retail drive when there is no US retail game produced.

It is also really interesting that there was a "retail-looking" sticker way before the final release. Does anyone know if they made any changes to the DD hardware after 1996?

 

Nintendo could have a retail disk writer for testing purposes, for potential releases, and really making sure it works.

 

Isn't it possible that the US version would have had little to no changes from the Japanese version and might have been able to run the same disks, just like US N64s can run Japanese carts (once you take care of the physical "region protection") with the only differences being English menu text and translated games?

@ASSEMbler, can these US units run Japanese N64DD games?

 

In that case there's no point in using US 64DDs. There are SDK functions supporting the US IPL ROM, checks that are unique to the US 64DD as well.
Also someone told me "LOT CHECK" is for testing potential US game releases. So my speculation about a retail disk writer COULD be right.
Not saying I'm right, but it's possible.

 

Jesus, that thing is Metal! It rocks!

Get that disc preserved before trying to run it again, just in case! I'd also recommend sending the unit itself to someone who can preserve the BIOS on the unit, as it could very well be unique.

Chances are the headers on the discs themselves will differ slightly from Japanese dev or retail discs - probably with a different string. It'll also be interesting to see if US DDs were going to be region locked.

Trying to access the disc as it is may damage it, so I'd suggest getting in touch with Kammedo or Barc0de (if they are still active) to see if they can help you with the dumping process.

Nice find, btw.

 

@Zoinkity can also help out here, he owns a 64DD dev kit and has enough hacking skills to know how to deal with those disks
Also US DDs are definitely region locked. There's more than enough proof from the N64 SDK.
We even know a byte from the US 64DD IPL: 0x04 at offset 0x9FF00. It's used for region check.
There's also a country code for 64DD disks but I forgot the exact code.

 

Therefore there has to be some US 64DD games somewhere or modified Japanese ones.

 

I'm not pretending to be an expert, but all the 64DD developer drives I've ever seen need an IPL cart to start up - they don't have a boot ROM inside the unit. Since it seems this unit does have a boot ROM, then it seems likely it's a retail drive.

 

Neat if real.

I'll take five. Do you accept western union money orders?

 

He didn't say he wants to sell it though.

 

Is metal jesus rock, same tv and poster.

Sorry for be off-topic, but nice find!

 

Would you please test Zelda and F-Zero? I'm curious if the US 64DD will cause any differences in those games. The Japanese versions had triggers if the expansion disks weren't inserted into an attached 64DD. And if Assembers selling 64DDs for $90 I'm interested, haha.

 

How could I forget about that?!?

Yep dev DDs shouldn't start without the IPL cartridge being inserted...

 

There are dev units that has IPL in it. (See Hard4Games' video about it.)

 

OP: what error does it display? Preferably a picture of it.

Once the IPL was finalized at v1.2 all dev units had an IPL and CIC chip embedded, just like retail drives.

IPL carts are NOT required to run earlier dev units. They are only required for software that utilizes sound/font resources from the IPL. Software using official libs will skip over the IPL region verification test during initialization as well (though later tests may require it). What is needed is a CIC chip and flashcart. My unit is an earlier one that does not have an embedded IPL, but it runs programs just fine.

Neither SDK examples nor SM64DD require the IPL cart in any capacity.

I can pretty much dump anything you throw at me if you need something dumped. FL address.