Nintendo's $14000 Game Boy Color Console

In this video we’ll take a look at some interesting Nintendo hardware, including a rare prototype development board called the CGB-STB-X2 which recently sold at auction for over $14,000 (it’s debatable whether it’s worth that much)! Not only will we be taking a close look at that, but also some other interesting development equipment, some of which hasn’t been seen before. So let’s take a look!

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#Nintendo #GameBoyColor #MachoNachoProductions

[Dwedit]

To dump the bootrom/bios from the final retail GBC, a hardware modification technique called Clock Glitching was used. The system clock was briefly made to run much faster, causing the CPU's program counter (PC) to glitch outside of the bootrom area, and begin executing code from the cartridge instead. Normally the bootrom removes itself from the memory map, and is not readable when running code from the cartridge. But glitching the program counter (PC) into the cartridge area causes the bootrom to remain mapped in memory and be readable. From there, the program on the cartridge would copy the Bootrom contents into the save memory on the cartridge, then you could back up the save memory.

[christophmuller]

The contacts above the CPU are a footprint for a zero insertion force socket - this board has been likely used to qualify pre production multi project wafer test runs of the CPU and these sockets allow to switch between samples without soldering. The soldered on chip without the markings is likely also a pre mass production version and some of the glitches you see in more modern games might be hardware issues fixed in later retail versions of the processor.

[stephenwhite]

The early GBA and even 3DS development kits were large PCBs from Nintendo, created by Intelligent Systems. With the GBA the amount of RAM was a lot smaller. When Nintendo got spooked with the rumours that Sony was entering the market with PSP they replaced it with a new PCB with a larger RAM. With all the prototypes we had to send them back to Nintendo. They replaced them with regular IS systems.
The 3DS PCB even had the two screes on the PCB.

[micdune]

We actually had one when we were doing one of the early GBC games (Quest for Camelot) for Nintendo US. The one we had was a bit different though (the screen was in the middle of the board as far i remember, but that was last century so my memory might be fuzzy here). They sent us the actual devkit afterwards but i'm pretty sure they never asked for the early kit to be sent back.

[devicemanager]

The NVC-VUE is a custom tweaked version of NEC v810 CPU. If I had to guess why it was on that board, I'd edge towards it being used as a coprocessor for handling the debug harness.

Edit: From a little research the SCSI controller is an NEC chip, which requires a NEC CPU to be run in tandem

[andrewvader]

Gotta be super rare hardware. I feel this is a prime time for people to start learning how to make these games, especially when we live in a world now where they want to steal our online titles and say that we don't own them. We're now we could start learning how to develop our home video game and claim them as our own

[cosmicsans]

A single functioning gameboy on a huge pcb board

[EdTheNerd]

Worth mentioning for viewers before misunderstandings spread: the FPGA inside is not at all doing the same job as what's in a MiSTer or Pocket. The CGB "EMULATOR" is only emulating the cartridge itself. The probe is basically just a long extension cable you could plug into any Gameboy, which is why it worked with the prototype GBC. Hell you could use it with a Super-Gameboy or Gameboy Player!
The CGB-CAPTURE however, is it's own standalone thing with video output and a dummy system as a "controller". Lemme know if you'd like to take a look at that Tito

[BinaryCounter]

I doubt the glitches are from firmware incompatibility. The firmware is really only present during booting to verify the ROM header and display the logo. After that, it's no longer present in memory space at all. There's no BIOS or OS, games talk directly to the registers inside the CPU.
My theory is that either something in the chip itself changed, or that on this revision there was an issue with the LCD not being able to handle the faster clock timings of 8MHZ mode.
Try playing a game that is compatible with both CGB and DMG, those typically leave the system in 4MHZ mode, even when running on a CGB.

[colingale]

You must look at the two devices separate. One is software development and the other was BIOS and hardware development. on the H/W board Connector US2 is the BIOS chip and you can dump and write a current GB bios, but do take note that within the bios is the code that controls the lcd (initital setup etc) and games use that to work, some coders included their own code instead of using the bios and thats where your LCD issue comes in, if you check the lcd on that board you will see it has different timings to a factory retail lcd. On the Software box the ram was changeable so it could support newer models even though they not been designed yet and also gimp you on features(upsell whats already there) , some units could just emulate carts and others would do a form of dual access ram giving you full debug of real time memory.

[KyleBrinkerhoff]

I’m actually working on something similar to this right now that uses a raspberry pi to take all of the interfaces and present them over a web interface, turns out the experience from building the game boy switch provided all the missing pieces needed to make this happen

[ykcwimh]

Tito is really good at presentation no wonder everybody sends him stuff to review

[paulloughlin]

Shout out to Andrew for sending that over to Tito to showcase for us! Thanks guys!

[coleeau]

some of the features of the bootrom seem to align with a early document leaked in the gigaleak. the version listed happens to also allow you to open up a pallet selector similar to the super gameboy. according to the document, you accsess the menu by pressing A+B+Select+Start. if you get a chance, please test it out. and please dump the bios, it is possible and it will probably be done in a way similar to what was done for the final Gameboy color.

[technocolossus]

That huge board would be a good piece to frame up on the wall

[iocat]

As a former GBC developer, this brings me back!!

[nicholsliwilson]

Fun video thanks, Tito but 9:15 as someone who was working in IT support when that old laptop was current let me just say, please, please *do not* open old laptops like that from one corner! You will put stress on the hinges & they will eventually brake. Less relevant now but OEMs like Toshiba would not cover the repair of broken hinges under warranty back in the day if we could get the customer to admit they opened their laptop by one corner & I have had many customers screaming at me &/or crying because I had to refuse a repair under warranty.

[circuitrewind]

GmaeBoy and GameBoy Color run at different clock rates. I'm almost positive looking at this video capture that the prototype board is simply running at too slow of a clock speed when in GBC mode, considering GB mode works just fine. I wonder if there is a way with the available traces to probe for, and adjust the clock speed to make it match a retail unit.

[Rob-ptdh]

Would be cool to poke around the test pads and see if it’s possible to dump the old bios. It’s a neat piece of history that’s for sure.

[gbs_central]

Imagine a world where we don’t have flash carts or products like the GBxCart or GB Operator and only had hardware like this to test the games we make.