What is the cheapest devkit?

I would like to get into the world of devkits and finding data on them, but most devkits for well know systems are miles out of my reach in the $1000+ range. Is there a devkit that I could find that is really cheap on average? I have virtually no money and can't currently buy anything from the forum.
Also, are there any good books for beginners on assembly? Just curious.
As always, any help is welcome

Thanks,

VGA Guy

 

The cheapest dev kit I bought was my NDEV which was like $400 shipped.

I feel ya on the money situation. What I do is save side money for a few months until I have enough to buy whatever dev kit I am interested in. Because it didn't take me very long to realize that dev kits cost a lot of money and that's just how it is.

And the prices here on the forum are pretty much the lowest you will find for the most part.

EDIT: Also if you are looking into getting dev kits with data on them it will costs a lot more than normal if there is anything good on them.

EDIT 2: Now that I think about it I did pay like $200 or so for my Xbox 360 Test kit.

 

I think currently some of the cheapest devkits are the older phat xbox 360's you can pretty easily find them for sub $300 shipped sometimes even with a sidecar.

 

PS2 TOOLs are often less than $400 USD, and PS2 and Xbox debug kits are sub-$200.

 

I forgot that the TOOLS are cheaper nowadays.

 

When I checked about 3 years ago I found one dreamcast devkit that was going for $7000 or so on ebay.
For anyone who wants to know, there is a sega saturn devkit on ebay for $2,999 from italy Link: www.ebay.com/itm/Sega-Saturn-Developer-KIT-Cross-SNASM-2-Jap-Dev-Development-Debug-bundle-Boxed-/272214845344?hash=item3f6144e7a0:g:JIAAAOSwqbZXE6iv

Has anyone found devkits for cheap at non online places?
Thanks for the advice by the way, didn't know that PS2 TOOLs dropped in price so much.

 

You just have to stay vigilant and keep searching. Save a bunch of eBay searches and check them everyday, as well as post a WTB thread here and watch the marketplace.

 

Just search and you get lucky.

Alternatively the cheapest is - Android (Ouya?)

 

Yeah, I understand. I am somewhat of a media preservationist, which is one of the reasons why I am interested in this.
I'll keep looking and if I find one for dirt cheap(my price range) I'll grab it.

 

Hello, some devkits don't contains data on them as they are only streaming platforms. If you don't want to use devkits to develop and you are only looking for datas, you sometimes better have to look for "test kits" to find datas, as they sometimes have a forgotten disc on them (ps2, wii rvt, psp,....).

 

I did not say all devkits had data on them, especially the old ones, since hard drives were very very expensive back then.
Thanks for bringing up test kits/test consoles, I totally forgot about them.

 

And the old ones may not be the cheaper ones haha. But yes, test console is a good option to find interesting stuffs. I will PM you about it.

 

My first 360 kit had a debug build of Damage Inc left in the disc drive. Nowhere was it listed in the auction or images that it had such a disc.

So yes, you can get lucky in this way from time to time.

 

Pretty nice surprise !
I have heard some stories like this with PSP dev kits. Like the Melody games that was leaked on this forum....

 

ITT: People looking for random stuff to throw money at, without a lot of discussion about what they're gonna do with it.

VGA: Are you interested in the devices themselves - or using them for development? If it's the latter, you can't get any cheaper than using the PC you already have. If it has to be console development, you could pick a well-emulated system, e.g. develop SNES games against Higan (that'd also go well with your assembly aspirations).

 

A bit of both actually.
I can only program in QBASIC currently, so developing games for consoles is not currently possible for me.
I do like the devices and seeing how they work.
Learning assembly is just a general skill I would like to have but it would definitely help when trying to dig through games and old debug files.

 

There are ways to develop in Basic on consoles like the Game Basic for the Saturn, the Yabasic tool that was on the demo disc bundled with PS2 at release, the Basic Studio kit also for the PS2 and Petit Computer on the 3DS.

 

A bit like saying "you can use fingerpaint on canvas, too"

 

I did not know there were BASIC compilers for consoles. That is really cool!
Someone made a bomberman clone in BASIC on the genesis but that was years ago and I only just now remembered it.
I'll check out the BASIC compilers you mentioned.

 

Yabasic documentation:
http://members.chello.nl/~a.vanarum8/Yabasic/
A version in javascript where you can try lots of the games and demos made by owners of the YaBasic disc:
http://www.mrdictionary.net/yabasic/

Official Basic Studio website:
http://www.artdink.co.jp/japanese/title/bs/
Quick reference guide and some programs:
http://homepage1.nifty.com/wakufactory/ezb/
Archive of the Project Gamma team games:
http://www.geocities.jp/owhari/bs/bs_index.html
They made an old school RPG (Beyond Story) and an arcade flight simulator (Albatross Project) amongst other stuff, you can find pics and details of their games on at https://web.archive.org/web/20030807225204/http://www.project-gamma.org/
A still working link to the video of the flightsim:
https://web.archive.org/web/20030801102641/http://www.project-gamma.org/04/00840006.wmv