EXTREMELY Rare GameBoy Test Cartridge
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- Опубликовано: 6 июл 2024
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It would be hard for a technician to lose the cartridge when it is that large. If the testing equipment was the size of a standard GB cart, it could easily walk out the door with the customer.
Yeah plus why should Nintendo make different molds/forms for all the test cartridges instead of making one to fit the small and big test pcb's 🤷🏻♂️
That's just more economic
Lose*
@John Martin Cantorne well for the cost of a tiny bit of extra plastic, but the savings of not needing to make an expensive new set of tooling for injection moulding, it did the job just fine.
How would you propose they fixed it without spending too much cash?
This is exactly it. They made a single "whenever we're making a custom cartridge" mold that had lots of room for experimentation and non-optimized layouts, then churned them out in bulk. Then, whenever they're making a custom cartridge, whether it's for a test version of a game (see dig-dug cartridge in this video), or a test cartridge for repairs, they just use that piece of plastic to stick it in.
Injection molding is incredibly expensive to set up, so they only made the one mold and just reused it for everything. The repair people don't have to carry the cartridges around, so they really don't need to be portable, nice looking, or efficiently packed with electronics. They sit on a shelf until they're needed 5 feet away, and that's it.
May be some psychological reason.
If it is standard size,
client: Are U a PRO?? You just plug a random game and press randomly, how can you sure everything OK, Don't trick me!!!
If use a big one,
client: Wow! that's a professional stuff.
Can't wait to see speedruns of this
Imagine the glitches
You know there was at least one nerdy technician who was the baddest. Had a leather sling for his cartridge and everything lol
Should we submit a race for AGDQ 2021?
TAS Bot plays Nintendo test cartridge (0:01.03)
hahaha i came down here to comment the same thing
The Japanese says "Controller Testing Cartridge". ;)
Great thanks!
can confirm :)
Kontoro-ra Kensa Ka-torijji
@@GizmoTheGreen ok?
Ok Rigby
The first set of katakana is "Controller" while the kanji translates to "inspection" and the last set of katakana is "Cartridge" "Controller Inspection Cartridge"
Came to say this, leaving satisfied.
It's the most expensive and shortest rhythm game I've ever seen.
I think the size it there to prevent techs from losing track of the device, or (less likely) stop people from stealing it.
Mykel Hardin i think it’s because they already made the nice looking development kit and thought that it would be expensive to make a new molding so instead they just reused the molding which saved money and allowed them to stick huge boards in there or small ones without the need for new molds
I actually love your sponsor sections almost as much as your content!!! So brilliant man! Keep it up!
Awh thanks. First one to comment on it. I appreciate it a lot!
Yeah it's creative and charming 😊
@@TheRetroFuture The background music is nice, too. That's from the RUclips library I assume? :)
it had a very vulfpeck vibe to it
This has 69 likes, I don't want to break it.
I have a theory of why the case is so oversized, they might of had a lot os similar shells for development carts or something similar and just used the same shell to cut costs
Makes a lot of sense, as plastic injection molds are supposed to be REALLY expensive.
the DMG-MBC1 multi checker cart uses the same shell but has sockets for three chips on that huge empty space. even though the name suggests it's a test cart, it apparently also serves as a dev cart and apparently dig dug was developed using one of these. www.nesworld.com/gb/pics/dmgmbs1-1.jpg
Its probably oversized so its easier to find in the factory during the testing phase. If you have hundreds being tested per day, having a larger place to grab and a larger object overall would be easier to find and easier to handle hundreds of times per day.
That's exactly the reason why, they reused the shells of the official development dev carts for their test hardware. Saves having to make a custom shell just for this board.
5:50 It's probably a 'standard' shell they use for developer carts, meant to accommodate _several_ large EPROMs. So, probably wanting to keep the software updateable, it was too large for a normal Game Pak, but only using the single ROM chip, it leaves the majority of this cart empty.
6:30 They don't 'do' anything, they're just vias, passing the signals from one side of the PCB to the other, for routing purposes. The extent of the cartridge's 'diagnostic' capabilities is a very simple piece of Game Boy software that graphically shows when a button is being pressed, and that's all. Nice and straightforward.
Such a "simple piece of software" is actually very useful. I require it for my game boy repairs, as sometimes buttons don't react as well as you want them to.
Btw: How come a guy who repairs game boys does not know wtf a via looks like?
It's 6.40am, and I've already seen more of Elliot's legs today than I ever intended.
My guess is the size is for a couple of reasons, one they probably just used a similar design to prototypes to allow for updating as needbe in terms of chip space, another possibility is so it would be easier for people in test centers to keep track of it.
I think it's pretty obvious when they showed the developer copy of dig-dug that it's just the standard case they use for developer chips, also some of the other testers would have filled the whole shell out
7:07 I'd never enjoyed an ad so much! xD Very creative man 10/10
I guess the size was so it would not be forgotten in units when returning to customers
Same thought
"not only are words small there are also a lot of them" :-D
Hey man just wanted to say that you inspired me to repairing and swapping parts from gameboys, I actually purchased a new gbc shell and buttons and used your videos for reference and help. Keep up the good work !
that was a pretty dang adorable ad spot, well done.
The test cartridge is fascinating! Very cool find!
I love this excotic hardware, great video and thank for showing it to us.
Great video man. Very handy to use that as a tester, even in any future videos! Really enjoyed the ad segment aswell 😂😂
"I will not be retrobrighting such a rare item"
*disassembles it*
Long time viewer, first time commenter.
WHAT WAS THAT AD FOR AUDIBLE 😂
That was really good. I'm dying to know: were you two just hamming it up, or are you both actually that bad at rollerskating? Either way, kudos for doing the ad that way, and not minding looking silly on camera!
Great Content man never thought I would see a test cartridge, let alone game boy. Keep up the good work
The oversized case for the cart was also used for the Intelligent Systems dev carts. Great video!
Well this has been the earliest I’ve been to one of your videos... ah whatever your videos are really interesting and I like them a lot. Keep it up!
I love your vids it gives me joy every time I watch you I even watch you on my own Nintendo switch sometimes
Love the videos man! Been watching you for a while, love from Scotland 🏴
Thanks Liam!
What a cool product,glad you made a vid on ot ive never heard of it!:)
The sponser ad 😂
Great work dude!
Oh man, that's gotta be the best audible sponsor spot I've ever seen 😋
I almost spat my tea 🍵 out when i saw your audible advert 😂 that's hilarious. I love how 80s/90s that was 😂
Can't believe I'm saying this, but loved the ad. Funny vid, and "words are small, and lots of them" lol.
For those of you that don't know Audible, it was pretty much the Raid Shadow Legends of the 2010's.
Probably the best audible ad I have ever seen:)
Your videos are relaxing :)
Hey Elliott. Please read my response to you in Kevin’s video yesterday. I would never accuse you of shilling. You are a great man and always up when someone send something for review. I’m so sorry for the confusion. Please let me know you read it. Thanks man. I love your channel man.
That dimple is absolutely from the injection molding process. They are known as a "gate" because they are formed where the mold and the nozzle that injects the molten plastic meet.
I would imagine that the size of the cart is due to exactly the same reason that the Dig Dug prototype is the size it is. It's easier to produce a single sized mould and die than it is to make a custom one that exactly fits the PCB and EPROM chip even if it happens to be smaller than the full case.
I'd bet money on it. The more advanced models likely needed more ROM chips and memory for the features, it's clearly injection molded, so they made millions of those plastic shells, for test carts but also for beta cartridges probably. That would also explain the fancy design and branding, so that they came across as professional and not just some shady overseas scam when dealing with game makers as well. Nintendo wasn't a huge company yet at this point, they were big but this was the era of the NES, SNES, and first Gameboy. The whole industry as a whole was just starting out then, a lot of people figured videogames would be a fad like pet rocks.
You do a very good job with your sponsorships!
6:45 You should call it by it's name, it's an EPROM = Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory, today rather EEPROMs are in use, Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory, so you can easily update your BIOS for example.
Another great video, really cool stuff :D
That board is actually pretty handy for testing/making your own ROM images on a standard size EEPROM chip. Kinda neat. Wish someone would create Repro's of just that board.
As if you got your hands on one of those, I'm very envious 👀. Loving the content as always!
Love the sonic screwdriver
2:10 I know someone who has one of these. Oddly enough, the tech has not increased in value all that much. The value of these is in the 80-150 USD range, but initially, the cost of manufacturing would of been about 200 USD.
4:20 That particular test cartridge is the one that actually has a value range of 300-500 USD.
6:48 That is called an EEPROM.
8:12 You two are so kyuute together, trying to skate, hold one another and pose for the cam. lolz
Seriously though, that controller testing cartridge (that's what it says in Japanese), it is really cool to have, and it would of been nice for Nintendo to of resold it to the public for self-repairs/diagnostics later on.
2:13 is that a sonic screwdriver? LOL a Whovian gamer. My man. ✊🏾
That advert you did had me rolling
this was the best clip of a sponsoring i ever saw
Very nice cartridge!
Although it is just a test cartridge, Mario smiles to me.
We can feel that how Nintendo's engineer enjoys their work.
Good history and it makes me smile.
(And the advertise is nice too!)
I love that very cartoony Mario on the graphic at the end.
I wonder if there are speedrun records for this cart?! 🤣
The golden points on the board are so called VIAs, they are there to get the signals (which ran on traces on the board) to the opposite (other) side of the board. Near the EPROM there are two jumper pads (those bigger round looking ones, a bit H shaped like golden contacts on bottom left corner of the chip), probably to set the ROM (EPROM) size. You can cut those blobs in the middle, or solder them together later to connect them again. The ROM itself is an EPROM, it can be burned (and also re-written or deleted) with special equipment. So you can update the software. Its also used for smaller production runs, as a real ROM chip would require a "mask" to produce it - using a standard EPROM is cheaper in small production, while it is harder to handle in huge production runs where you typically use non-universal, non-rewriteable ROMs (Read Only Memory vs. EPROM = Earaseable Programable ROM). The print A-G-I-N-G on it probably just mean what it says: The English Word AGING: For testing of aging contact pads. But that is just my assumption.
AGDQ is going to come up with a speed run for this.
The casing was probably massive due to being in a workspace. Workers would lose it within minutes. Having a nice brick to look for is likely much easier.
The reason for a case like that makes me think that the ones with the larger board came first, then smaller version came out, but it didn't make sense to build a new injection mold so they kept using the larger one.
The size is just for ease of access if your testing multiple devices a day you want your tool to be easily accessible to insert and remove aswell as just not losing track of it
Hahahaha!!!! Video? Great! Interesting! But, the gem was absolutely, you and Emily in the sponsor portion. Audible should double, whatever their sponsoring entails. 🤣🤣
"im not a big fan of reading, not only the words are small, theres also alot of them." xD.
"hang about!" new favorite phrase
The enclosure was probably used for other more chip-heavy things as well.
2:16 uh, why do I see 10s sonic screwdriver 😂
those "presumed buttons" are just the PCB traces switching sides through vias (metal plated holes) to reorder them because the pins on the chip are in a different order than the pins on the cartridge header.
Love this video man. Next up Odroid-Go Advanced?
For anyone wondering about the Japanese text on the button-pressing screen:
"指示に従って押してください" (シジニ シタガッテ オシテクダサイ, shiji ni shitagatte oshitekudasai) translates to "Please press as instructed"! I suspect they wrote it in the Katakana writing system simply because it would be easier to program and read than a complicated kanji, like "指" (シ, shi) for example.
Cool .. Thank you for the information : )
Why are there different forms of writing styles in Japan ? Is geography based or different times in Japan's history ?
@@chazzlucas6395 From my understanding, the two non-kanji writing systems (Hiragana and Katakana) developed at the same time.
Katakana is sort of like the Japanese version of italics! So like, it's used to emphasize words, show onomatopoeia, and replace obscure or hard-to-read kanji.
ie. The kanji "蜥蜴" (tokage, meaning "lizard") is super hard to read and kinda just looks like two white boxes, so you'll most likely see it written as "トカゲ" !
@@zeldafreak1312 Great I've heard about the different writing styles in Japan but never looked up the reason for it.......... thank-you for the reply, kind helpful persons do still exist on RUclips : )
What a lovely Audible ad hahaha
LOL cutest audible AD I've ever seen XD
Yayyy this made my day better and less boring 😂
I turned off my gameboy pocket and I heard a loud pop coming from the inside of the system. Now the system won’t turn on and I have no idea what’s wrong with it. Any suggestions on what it could be or what I could do to fix it?
Not only are words small, but there are a lot of them!
All I can imagine is it’s so you don’t accidentally leave it in the customer’s console thinking it’s a game
コントローラ検査カートリッジ
Controller Inspection Cartridge
I would guess its larger so that you could wiggle it in the cartridge slot to test the pins for contact and perhaps a solder joint if that's what it uses, I've never had one apart.
Making a custom injection mold is so expensive that they simply decided to use the same for development and repair ! Also they definitely can't be confused with actual product ! Neat cartridge !
Very interesting video! Greetings from Germany 🇩🇪
That baby blue Gameboy is so nice ☺
Haha, that's amazing! thought that test cartridge can't be bigger than a 32k rom and sure enough the PCB looks like this.
The next video should be you in a fishing vest full of tools going to boot sales testing gameboys!
It's the Mario of Alleyway, when you finished all the levels.
Most likely manufacturing costs are why they put such a small board in that large case. They figured they would have something that needed all that empty space and then just mass produced it because it's cheaper than having to create new dies to make different sized cartridges for different types of boards. Then they just create the board based on the space they have. You find shoes do the same thing, they'll fit a box to the largest shoes and then keep that size for all the sizes before it (except for Nike...).
when I so the "functionality of this thing I was sure that the case is near empty :D haha I assume that this was used for many others test equipment and prototypes
Those dots you saw on the board are just vias. They connect a trace on the bottom of the PCB to the top. They're there to change the pinout of the EPROM to match a Gameboy cartridge's pinout.
Also, that UV LED used in the picture you showed *will not* erase a UV EPROM, no matter how long it's exposed. The UV wavelength needed to erase them is in the UVC range (about 270nm) and the pictured LED has that purple colour of UV around 400nm. You'd be better off exposing it to sunlight on a window sill for a few days to weeks. A sterilization UV bulb (for aquariums or water treatment) will do it in a few minutes though.
There are UVC LEDs, but they cost a couple of hundred dollars _each_ last I checked.
Edit: Turns out prices for UVC LEDs have dropped dramatically since I last checked.
Just a FYI but back in the day, especially with electronics, if the device felt light or was small in size people largely wouldn't buy it as they assumed it was cheap/unreliable. They used to put dummy weights via large steel bars inside various electronic devices just to add perceived value. Some still do this. Crazy times.
That's a *T H I C C* ROM chip.
you KNOW there are gonna be speed runs of this
That ad was worth it!
One assumes Nintendo used a single type of housing for these, special cartridges, one that could house a large development board like the one shown. Just easier to manufacture lots of these, then plop whatever is needed inside. Side benefit, doesn't get lost easily. :)
Can also confirm, words are small. Nice 4:3 aspect ratio on the bit. :)
Technology definitely evolved with sizes of test cartridges
i have a normal cart-size repro of a test cartridge using a dump of an official ROM someone must have dumped (wasn’t me, i dont own a real one of these, sadly) i bought when i modded DMGs more actively. it’s just a burnt rom chip on a board and its ugly-looking, but it’s function over form. it’s the one with the menu.
edit: i got to the part where you mention it! mines a very simple one from kitsch-bent but at the time it was under $10, so i don’t have any complaints. i recognised the cart art on the second one. that looks like it was by ASM (apeshit mods), and he hasn’t been super active in the GB hardware community for a while now, as far as i remember (Retro Modding carries stuff he developed now I think). he made these gorgeous daughterboards to replace the headphone amp with one that had a second audio out for a line-out mod (prosound). you would just have to carefully dremel a hole in a case (usually there were spares around, like 10 years ago there weren’t too many replacement shells being made and they definitely weren’t just something you could just get on aliexpress back then), and the mod would look pretty much stock, as good as the stock headphone jack. nobody would notice you’d modded it very quickly unless they were in the modding/chiptune scene. he’s a really cool guy. he put a backlight in one of my extreme green game boy pockets that has a pixel art chikorita painted on it (dont worry, that gb wasn’t near mint like my other 2 extreme greens, and collecting was a lot easier/cheaper even just 10-12 years ago. i mostly collected earlier than that, and got a lot of hardware and games out of curbside trash during spring cleaning. i would probably get an aftermarket shell if i wanted another extreme green game boy pocket, and i’m pretty sure the repros made in china glow under blacklights, so bonus!) and did an awesome job. im just starting to get back into this stuff (i have a lot of similar interests to eliot but my main focus interest will often shift slightly for a while) and it’s nice to have these memories.
Looks like those are multihead screws, like underneath the slot, it's also designed to accept another type of screwdriver, lik inner hex or something like that.
The PCB does nothing interesting, it just flips the bus around, because the chip is effectively on the wrong side of the board, because they wanted to keep the protrusion on the casing facing you rather than away from you.
You should make a video about your current collection dude! Very curious.
Very interesting
Hey on a side note, I bought a backlit gameboy color off ebay that has the adjustable brightness im noticing when its on pause the screen keeps dimming and changing brightness as if im tapping the ir sensor it also does it slightly while playing a game. im assuming this is a defect or is it a battery saver thing?
The size must make it easier to take it in and out cause if you think about it they probably had a lot to repair and half disassembled consoles.
Saw your quads 😀😀😀
I can imagine a speedrun about this
The reason its so big - It was to prevent technicians accidently leaving the cartridge in the Game Boy. In addition it prevented them getting lost in the repair facility.
Pretty sure "Cont" stands for "Controller", seeing as this tests the buttons i.e. the controller part.
Since the program is on a flashable chip, which is also socketted, I'm wondering how easy it would be to burn a new chip with some of the other test programs and put it in the socket
Very nice bit of kit, in regards to the gameboy I was thinking about just doing a backlight on a dmg rather than an ips mod as it’s just black and white, is it worth it?
Interesting how similar the design is to the Gameboy Game Genie 🤔 The creators of the Game Genie must’ve seen/had one of these and took inspiration from its design
Love the screwdriver set with the orange case and detachable heads. Does anyone know the brand/model of this kit? Thank you.
Hayden Roberts yes
Its a wish item that is also sold on amazon under a few different brandings. Runs about $15-$20.
Epic vid
Cheers!