Hello community! I am very sorry if this isn't the right place to post this. The idea of owning some game development hardware has really intrigued me. I was wondering if anyone could give some insight on where to find this sort of stuff. I'm talking about maybe old warehouses or game developers still in business that might have some in the back room. I know this probably sounds really stupid, but I live in Northern Ohio. Are there any studios close by? Thanks guys!
Finding a warehouse or company that will sell to you is going to be hard. Your best bet may be to make a want to buy thread in the marketplace with what you want. May take some time but depending on offered price and rarity of your requests it could be answered anywhere from rather quickly to never at all. Or you could get lucky like me and have someone approach you with a decent offer. That's how I found my debug Xbox console.
Some more tech centric flea markets or just regular flea markets can have some results from time to time.
Thank you for the replies! Yeah I'm interested in Gamecube stuff but if I came across anything for a decent price I'd pick it up.
I'm pretty sure most development hardware these days isn't allowed to be resold under the licensing terms from the console companies. They either have to be returned to HQ or physically destroyed once the developer is done with them. The equipment out there "in the wild" I think largely comes from companies that went out of business and their assets got scattered or auctioned off without MS/Sony/Nintendo noticing. So yeah, your best bet is either this site or Ebay, or maybe Craigslist.
A lot of the time Microsoft didn't want their debug kits back... As it costs money for them to be destroyed. Of course they are not meant to be sold as they are usually given to reviewers.
That explains why some of the more hardcore Xbox guys (like us) have them then. Seems there are more debugs out in the wild than I originally thought.
It's a development tool version of the original Xbox. They usually came in a green casing like the Halo edition. Major differences from retail are the dash, MCPX chip, BIOS, and memory. Debug and dev consoles have what is known as the "XDK launcher dash". This allows for launching .xbe executables straight from the HDD. Retail consoles have what is known as the MCPX3 chip. Debug and dev have a MCPX2. Not much difference really short the 3 version having a secret boot ROM in the BIOS. The BIOS is different for loading the XDK dash, memory changes, debugging tools, etc. Retail consoles have 64MB of RAM. Most debug units have 128MB for games that aren't memory optimized yet and for the debugging tools that run on games. There is the dev kit and the only real major changes it has from a debug is the inclusion of a serial cable based debugger and a Raptor DVD emulator that plugs into the proper card on a PC and loads a game from there. Can emulate the speed of the DVD drive and allows for real time changes to the game code on the dev PC. There are many more differences I'm sure to be forgetting and I might be wrong on some of the info. Best to ask someone who knows more about them than me as I just recently got into this area of the Xbox. HEX1GON or davidthomas would be good ones to ask.
Dont know if you found a case, but here is one that is close: http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-AT-Heav..._FireWire_Cables_Adapters&hash=item3a8ea6c9fb I just searched 'AT computer case turbo' Those old server cases are what you need to look for. But the one I linked to looks to be the same style, so the door/cover might be exactly the same.
