SNK dev system found. I think.

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So I recently purchased this system which was, according to the seller, picked up at an auction for all of SNK's old crap when they closed up shop.

It's a home system with two large stickers on the bottom. One reads something along the lines of "Development system, return to dept. 3 when you're finished with it" and the other reads "property of dept. 3, division 7". In Japanese of course, so I'm paraphrasing here.

Inside it has a socketed eprom, socketed 68000 and socketed Z80. It came with a controller port plug with a switch on it (labelled "dev" and "normal" or similar, again in Japanese) as well as two mahjong controllers which have stickers under the buttons in hex (0-9, A-F).

Haven't powered it up yet, thought I'd ask around, see if anyone knows what it is, what it's good for.

Lawrence.

<small>[ May 06, 2003, 04:09 AM: Message edited by: NEOGEOman ]</small>
 

BlackSpy

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I think there are probably several people that will kill you to get their hands on this...

If you post this in the Tech Forum you'll probably meet them quite soon.

<small>[ May 06, 2003, 04:20 AM: Message edited by: BlackSpy ]</small>
 

SonGohan

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Does it come in a little microwave? That always makes things better and more collactible.
 

Kazuya_UK

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Awesome find - as Blackspy said, there really are a few people that would kill to be able to get it off you :)

Kaz
 

Lou Gojira

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Sounds like you may possibly have a Holy Grail of sorts. Please keep us all updated on everything when you fire it up and inevitably play around with it. :D

I can't help but wonder if any developer's manuals may be out there as well. You know they had to have a basics on getting started with it all.
 

JHendrix

Jello Pudding Pop, Y'know? Like that whole Bill C
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Dude I don't care if you're going to sell it or not, but MAN HOOK US UP WITH SOME PICS!!!!

At least give a brother something to drool over!!!
 
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There's just not that much to see. It's a standard neo system (tho it has no serial sticker) with some socketed chips inside. Here's a pic of the BIOS ROM and socketed Z80:

<img src="http://nfg.2y.net/temp/neodevz80.jpg" alt=" - " />

And here's the switch:

<img src="http://nfg.2y.net/temp/neodevswitch.jpg" alt=" - " />

As an update, I fired it up: It jumps immediately to some sort of memory viewer, the mahjong controller allows you to cycle through commands and set values.

Lawrence.
 

Atro

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HEY!!! I wonder if the Neo Geo Mobo accepts a faster M680x0 on that socket ... a 20MHz one would kick ass!!!

Bye Bye slowdowns on Metal Slug 2 ! WOOOHOOOO!!! :D

Excellent find. wink
 

JHendrix

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Atrophyed:
HEY!!! I wonder if the Neo Geo Mobo accepts a faster M680x0 on that socket ... a 20MHz one would kick ass!!!

Bye Bye slowdowns on Metal Slug 2 ! WOOOHOOOO!!! :D

Excellent find. wink
Heh, I think that they put in the 20Mhz version but the board clock is still running at 16Mhz. Something tells me that the way they program their games they'd do it the lazy way and base all things off of clock ticks, kinda like older PC games like XCom or Wolf3D, etc.

A Neo running at 20Mhz would truely be "OVERPOWERED" to the point where it was unplayable. loco

PS. I know you weren't serious about it, but I can see some newbie or someone read your post and make some posts about "Hey guys Playmore is going to overclock the Neo and KOF2k4 can look like SF3!!!!!"
 
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Snooptalian:
Is it just me, or did the pics not work?
My humblest apologies, I chose that moment in time to tear the server down and bring it back up. Pics should work fine for all now.
 

Atro

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JHendrix:
PS. I know you weren't serious about it, but I can see some newbie or someone read your post and make some posts about "Hey guys Playmore is going to overclock the Neo and KOF2k4 can look like SF3!!!!!"
AHAH!! No! not really like it.

But I have tried with Nebula to overclock the M68000 to 24MHz, and all I can say is that the games that were full of slowdown ( MS2, ST2 ) are incredibly smooth.

In the case of Metal Slug 2, the game is totally playable. As for Shock troopers 2, the Slowdown is needed.

I can't figure how I could skip some bullets in Last Resort if I'd play that game without slowdown! wink
 

Setsuna1982

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I've read somewhere a long time ago that neogeo owners could contact SNK back in earlier 90's and pay lots of money to get a developer kit...

I've searching more info about this for quite a lot of time (although using just a 1% of effort)

Anyone have more info on this? It would be great to develop homebrew neo games like the ones on internet but using a easier (i guess) way via developer kit.

BTW i want a NetYaroze drool_2
 

Atro

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Setsuna1982:
BTW i want a NetYaroze drool_2
YUCK!!! those 1002 PSX models are lame. The lens is dead after a short period of use.

That black design is beatifull tough. wink
 

kernow

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Atrophyed:
Setsuna1982:
BTW i want a NetYaroze drool_2
YUCK!!! those 1002 PSX models are lame. The lens is dead after a short period of use.

That black design is beatifull tough. wink
woot, I rock

<img src="http://stalemeat.net/images/yaroze/yaroze2.jpg" alt=" - " />
 

Setsuna1982

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You own one of them?

How is programming for it? The typical C/C++ stuff? Perhaps ASM? Or it have a specific language based on C (IE: C++ and specific functions for some things)?

I've never heard of that lense issue... if that's true what a pity oh_no
 

kernow

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Setsuna1982:
You own one of them?

How is programming for it? The typical C/C++ stuff? Perhaps ASM? Or it have a specific language based on C (IE: C++ and specific functions for some things)?

I've never heard of that lense issue... if that's true what a pity oh_no
Its not mine, I borrowed it from Uni for my dissertation.

Its a standard ELF GCC affair, a cross compiler on your PC compiles C into an ELF binary, which is sent via an upload cable to the playstation, which is running a serial slave boot disc.

You get lots of fun sony libraries and header files to play with, but due to time constrictions the only thing I have got it to do so far is print 'hello world' and a simple pad test where it tells you what direction is pressed.

The OS/libs itself are quite 'thick', and complex, it took a lot of work just to get it to display hello world, like 100+ lines initialisation etc.

Its fun, maybe I'll use it again but I prefer my GNU Dreamcast setup with Kallistios, simply because the API is more friendly and I can actually develop for it as its open source. I can't release anything on this sony box, therefore the prospect of coding on it doesn't really interest me *that* much.

The university has 3 of them, they have been sat on the shelf doing nothing because the students complained of 'unimpressive results' for the effort they put in.

Oh well, the powdery black finish is nice.
 
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