Is there a guide to the different devkits for different systems?

[jonwil]

Something that could be used to answer these kinds of questions:
"I am thinking of getting or bidding on xyz dev-ish hardware, what is it for"
"I want to develop for xyz system, what should I buy, look for or obtain to get started" e.g. for PS2, you need a DEV PS2 TOOL, a TEST PS2 or modded retail PS2 to test stuff on plus appropriate libraries & SDKs I think
"I already own x,y and z, what else do I need to buy in order to have all the known dev items for that system"
Also, the list could include (where it is known and documentable) a "parts list" for each dev item e.g. "A PS2 DEV box should include the unit itself, a power cord, a controler plus disks labeled SDK disk, libraries disk and test disk (or whatever it actually contains)". Where the items included with the dev hardware (e.g. power adaptors, controlers or other accessories) are the same as for the retail units (and therefore available from anywhere that has the retail stuff), this should be mentioned.
This would then be usable to answer questions like:
"I am thinking of bidding on or buying xyz, what is missing compared to what should be included with the system"

My particular systems of interest (as far as wanting to know what exists and what one would need to develop for) are:
Arcade (i.e. are there any known arcade devkits out there)
Famicom/NES (although as far as I know, there were no devkits per se, just carts with reprogrammable rom chips or rom "emulators" on them and custom tools plus some kind of hardware doc from nintendo)
Nintendo Gamecube (there are so many different bits of dev related hardware for this its almost impossible to tell what it is all for :)
Neo-Geo (Have any Neo-Geo home, arcade or CD dev related items turned up outside of SNK?)

[Stone]

For the GC at least you have:

NPDP-GDEV
--comes with a USB->EXI adaptor, install CD, SDK CD, ODEM card (PCI), ODEM cable and a controller+power+video cable too
--full devkit, accepts carts or PC as a disc emulation source

NPDP-GBOX
--only accepts carts, cannot be used with an ODEM card

NPDP console
--final-revision console hardware with a cart slot (the red cube)

NPDP-SW
--allows carts to be written one-at-a-time

NPDP-GW
--allows multiple carts to be written at once

Also you have the SN Systems TDEV (brown cube, cheaper than a GDEV) and the DDH which was a devkit based on early hardware.

Am I missing any? :)

Stone

[jonwil]

I think that for the GameCube, there are also the NR writer which burns the custom NR disks (how does the data get into the NR writer? Do you plug it into the PC? Into another GC development box? Plug one of the grey hard disk carts into it?) and the NR reader which is a gamecube that plays NR disks instead of retail disks.

[Topic Archive]

...and the DDH which was a devkit based on early hardware.

Stone


DDH is the same as GDEV and GBOX, i.e. it's built upon the maturity of the Orca, in other words it can be as 'old' or 'new' as any comparable Dev Kit.