3DO Development Station

Valdeargos · 01-28-2005

1500 miles away, sitting in storage, I have the motherboard for one of these which is entirely different from the 2 console versions I've seen or the "PC" version on your page. It's one AT formfactor board, that has everything on it including CPUs, BIOS, 2 locking ribbon-cable-end-style joystick ports, several 50 pin SCSI ports (?; also plain-old-rectangle variety, but unevenly spaced with an expansion board plugged into one of them), video/sound jacks, and a FDDI controller. I'm guessing it's probably a prototype of the one on your page, and it has what appears to be a prototype number hand written on a spot next to the "development station" printing on the board. Anyhow, I just wanted to see if this is rare enough that I should rediscover it, and take pictures. I had assumed, since I saw one on eBay a few years ago, that the ugly PC case one was what mine would look like if it wasn't so incomplete, but now that I've seen the insides of yours, I think I must have something else. Mine doesn't even have a red PCB or the port for that NuBus looking addon board.

Update: I forgot about the lock/key situation, I might just have to wait until my next visit, but then I can take pictures of my full collection and some friends' stuff too.

**Tachikoma** · 01-28-2005

I would say it's definitely worth re-claiming, anything even slightly different is worth investigating.

**ASSEMbler** · 01-28-2005

and welcome.

Valdeargos · 01-29-2005

Okay, I'll see if I can coax somebody into digging it out and sending it to me, else it'll be awhile until I see it again. Hopefully it won't be too long either way because I'm going crazy without my amplifier, speakers, LaserActive, and all the other stuff there that used to make life in Nowhere tolerable. :smt043 Which reminds me, I need to fix my PAC-S10, and reassemble my X'Eye 2, so I can post autopsy photos of those at the same time (unless I can get it shipped here sooner).

Does anyone know for sure what the drive interface on it is? I never actually tested it because even if it used a normal AT power supply, I've spent more than enough time staring at the 3DO BIOS screen--the GoldStar's CD audio player was always the coolest thing about 3DO anyway, am I right? More importantly, does it need the dev software to load game data or can it boot normal discs? Also does it need FPM or EDO? Actually, looking again, I feel kinda silly because it appears that that just *is* a NuBus card, the Mac end of the entire dev system. Mine's probably just the same board that's in the PC case, but green. Oh well, it's unusual enough to take pictures of either way. And for anybody that's wondering, it came from a weekend flea expo in Denver about 6 years ago, and I think I got it for an exorbitant $15.

and thanks. glad I found you.