Is this a real SNES prototype or some homemade shizzle?

[Tyree_Cooper]

The seller told me he bought it many years ago off eBay and doesn't know much about it, except that it's supposed to be a prototype. I only have a SFC hooked up so I haven't tested it yet, but I don't hope for anything else than the normal game.

I'm not really into protos but I believe they're not supposed to come in small boards like this?

[Yakumo]

Well, the stckers on it for a start are way too new to be original. looks like a bloody mess to me. I've never seen a prototype cart with wires all over the place.

Yakumo

[Tyree_Cooper]

Yes I didn't think of that, and the hand-writing doesn't feel right either.

Here's some info on the pcb: http://www.snescentral.com/pcbboards...p=SHVC-2A0N-11.

I'd like to peel off those ugly stickers and see if the're at least real uv eproms...

[sabre470]

Looks like nice home made fake, really bad soldering job lol. I think Konami had enough money to buy some decent dev carts from Nintendo with proper eprom socket to allow their team not to be soldering instead of developing games.

I've got an SFC proto cart that Yakumo sold to me years ago, I need to dig out the pictures, I can't recall if there was any soldering job on it?

[derekb]

yeah that soldering job on the chips is super sketchy

[Jamtex]

What are the 4 digit numbers to the right of the ST logo?

[APE]

There is no way any reputable developer, during the 90s, would make their own test carts without at least socketing the sucker first. For all they know they could be burning EPROMs with worthless data making all of that work pointless. Even the smaller devs who did work on Genesis games bothered to make their own custom PCBs when SEGA didn't offer them anything (think Accolade).

yeah that soldering job on the chips is super sketchy

I've seen (and done) worse. You'd be surprised what looks bad works fine and what looks good sucks hardcore.

[ASSEMbler]

Fake. no one puts "proto" on their carts, they put a version number or alpha/beta.

Fake.

[Psycho]

Fake. no one puts "proto" on their carts, they put a version number or alpha/beta.

Fake.

Yeah, the stickers definitely aren't original, but there's always the chance the real ones fell off and someone added those later?

(Not saying I think it's real or anything, just making a comment... :) )

I'd like to see a closer shot of the chips though, so we can read the numbers. The date codes on the chips would tell a lot (one looks like it might be 9906, that'd be 6th week of 1999, wouldn't it? If that's the case, it's definitely fake.)

And what are they trying to do with the wires, anyway? I can't quite make that out...

[MottZilla]

Everything is wrong about it. Developers back then didn't bend pins on eproms up like that. They didn't run wires all over. And they wouldn't be using that PCB, particularly for a game that came out in 1995. And the wouldn't write proto on it. However the weird stickers, it's possible the proto had no stickers on it when someone got it. But the other details show that it is most certainly a bootleg. You could check the date code on the eproms too. If they were made after 1995, there is no chance it was a proto.

There is a tiny chance that it could contain a prototype version but it definitely wouldn't be the original board and eproms. I hope you didn't pay much for it.

[APE]

And what are they trying to do with the wires, anyway? I can't quite make that out...

Mainly address shifting due to EPROMs and the maskrom pinout not matching up 1:1.

[badinsults]

It definitely looks like "homemade shizzle". Chances are, someone has thrown on a copy of Vampire's Kiss to make a repro, as the game is quite expensive.