EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Electronics => Projects, Designs, and Technical Stuff => Topic started by: nitro2k01 on March 03, 2012, 02:22:53 am
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Background: I'm preparing a project to categorize old brick Gameboys (The so called DMG-01) by manufacturing date serial number and a few other parameters. The project will be based on user-submitted input and to get an as accurate date as possible, I want to make accurate notes of all available date codes in every unit.
(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7044/6947812263_a001e3b238.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/gameboygenius/6947812263/)
This is an LSI RAM chip with marking D213. I've heard two theories.
1) It simply means 92. This is consistent with the CPU, made in 9216. Only a couple of weeks apart.
2) The first digits is a single digit year, starting at 0=80, 1=81, and then letters after 9, so A=90, B=91 and D=93. (In this theory, 213 would be MDD) If this is correct, the unit would be manufactured at least one year after the CPU. This makes less sense to me, but if that's the way it is, it is. Does anyone here know for sure how LSI did their date codes?
Extended theory about the possible one year gap: Nintendo usually used Sharp brand RAM, since they also fabbed the CPUs. One possibility is that units where the RAM failed would be binned for later and have their RAM replaced.
(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7192/6801705410_e7629872fe.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/gameboygenius/6801705410/)
(http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7058/6796272010_045c3417fa.jpg) (http://www.flickr.com/photos/gameboygenius/6796272010/)
Another thing I need help with is the date codes on the custom Alps brand DC/DC converters. The month is marked with a red dot, and the year is printed in the silkscreen. What I'm wondering about now is what the things written after the year are. In particular, could the + mean "this board is assembled one year after the board was built"? So if they had a 96 vintage board lying around in 97, they would smack on a red dot next to the plus to mark that that was the case. The problem with this theory in this case is that 1997 is a tad late for a DMG to be built. (The next model, Gameboy Pocket was released in 1996.)
Question is again, does anyone know how Alps marked their boards at this time? The problem with the later DMG boards is that the CPU chip is under a black epoxy blob to save money, so all of a sudden there's no date code to be gotten from the CPU.
And if anyone wonders, I'm serious about this little geeky project to categorize Gameboys. Some people collect stamps or coins or read about World War II history. I do this.
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D213 might just simply mean Date (199)2 week 13. Makes more sense to me since it's 3 weeks apart from the CPU code.
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D213 might just simply mean Date (199)2 week 13. Makes more sense to me since it's 3 weeks apart from the CPU code.
Sure, that was my initial guess. Pretty pbvious. :)
What I'm looking for now is if someone knows for sure.