NES Dev Kit on ebay

Mattroid

Thread Manager, Moderator: Console Section

Donor 3 years: 2011, 2013-2014
Joined
Feb 25, 2004
Messages
17,111
Reaction score
161
Location
Austin, Texas
Neat. If this was Westwood's dev kit, then it was probably used to develop DragonStrike.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Original-Nintendo-NES-Development-Kit-One-Kind-/110681980852

This is an original Nintendo Development Kit. It came from the warehouse of Westwood Studios in Las Vegas, Nevada. Westwood was an early game maker that was eventually bought by Electronic Arts. I have plugged the item in and hooked it up. Nothing happens other than the screen blinks off and on with a white background. I have no idea if there is a game on it or not. The bottom portion of the kit works because I was able to run another game cartridge on it. The electronic board has ATARI printed on top of it in a few places. I think that is a little strange.

In 2001 I was working in Westwood's Storage Warehouse. The warehouse was a mess. I remember throwing out a bunch of random things including some Atari 2600 controllers and tons of old video game magazines. When I saw this item, I did not know what it was. My video game experience starts and stops at playing them. I knew it was odd so I asked if I could have it. My supervisor said help yourself to anything that's being tossed out. Since then it has been sitting in my garage where I have regarded it as a curiousity but also as a possible piece of video game history.

It is my opinion that this item is a one of a kind find for Original NES Nintendo Collectors. I set the reserve fairly high because I do not mind if it has to sit in my garage for another 10 years before I get a good price. If you have any questions I'll do my best to answer them.
 
Serious waste of money, seeing as Nintendo never released a Dev Kit for the NES, just passed on tech papers to developers. It's not like writing code for the 6502 was rocket science...

This is likely something Westwood made in house, to cover the use of different mappers, bank switching etc all on one board with only having to swap out ROMs.
It's huge, it's ugly...it's useless and it's not official, I hope someone enjoys their $500+ Frankenstein NES.
 
Serious waste of money, seeing as Nintendo never released a Dev Kit for the NES, just passed on tech papers to developers. It's not like writing code for the 6502 was rocket science...

This is likely something Westwood made in house, to cover the use of different mappers, bank switching etc all on one board with only having to swap out ROMs.
It's huge, it's ugly...it's useless and it's not official, I hope someone enjoys their $500+ Frankenstein NES.
I have to agree it's a waste of money, though I have very little understanding of programming. I figured it wouldn't be something someone could actually use so what's the point? Just bragging rights or impressing other collectors?
 
Some people on a couple websites are saying the seller is the guy from Pawn Stars.
I can see it, seeing as he's selling something as something it is not...and making unfounded claims.
 
Back
Top Bottom