Nintendo Put Twice The RAM Into This OBSCURE and RARE Brown Gamecube

Nintendo Made A Gamecube With Twice The RAM | TDEV
Nintnedo made an unknown and very unique brown Gamecube that has twice the RAM of a standard retail unit. So instead of 24MB, this unit has 48MB! Also interesting is that this Gamecube was designed by a company called SN Systems, which is now owned by Sony, a major competitor to Nintnedo. So what’s the story behind this rare Gamecube and what can it do? Let’s find out!
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Timestamps
0:00 Intro
0:40 TDEV Background
3:34 Unique Exterior Features
5:40 Powering on the TDEV
7:00 TDEV Tear Down
11:45 Takeaways
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Disclaimer: This video is only for entertainment purposes. Any injury, damage, or loss that may result from improper use of tools, equipment, or from the information in this video is the sole responsibility of the viewer and is to be used at the discretion of the end user/viewer and not Macho Nacho Productions or Tito Perez. If you are uncertain about any step of the process or feel unsure about your skill level, seek a more authoritative source.
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#Gamecube #Nintendo #MachoNachoProductions

[@jamesingham]

We had these in the labs at our university. I tried so hard to obtain one when they were essentially outdated but they wouldn’t let me due to a NDA 😢

[@MachoNachoProductions]

Whoa that’s awesome! I would try so hard to get one also 😅

[@gugomajo4161]

stealing 😈

[@Leighton_Lamb]

They're gone now?

[@AJ-ed7mx]

That five finger discount

[@jamesingham]

I didn’t see these replies until today! Yeah they had like 30 of them. One at each desk. The dolphin SDK was not that easy to work with haha. We also had a PSP dev kit at each desk, and if you didn’t know what you were looking at you’d have no idea what it was! Edit: I just googled it and the square UMD drive is a giveaway haha. I had no idea back then!

[@anthonybrunotheodd]

Whenever I see the IBM logo I always get this warm fuzzy feeling because my Grandmother worked for them in the 60’s as a computer programmer and her work played a small part in modern computing.

[@bradlauk1419]

Your grandma is a badass in the nerdiest way

[@steveballmersbaldspot2.095]

People sometimes forget how massive IBM's contribution in helping to lay the foundation of modern technology. Them and Bell Labs (AT&T).

[@anthonybrunotheodd]

@@steveballmersbaldspot2.095 How funny is that. After my Grandma worked for IBM, she accepted a job with an AT&T subsidiary, Western Electric. My Grandfather also worked for Western Electric.

[@SamzaNemesis]

You could run Metroid Prime 3 prototypes with picoboot on this, these requires 48MB devkits and could be a very interesting showcase

[@Zinkolo]

Someone already did. Look up hard 4 games

[@PtoPOnline]

Mine crashes when trying that for what worth

[@Weneedaplague]

He doesn't actually know anything about retrogaming. Just what the sponsor sends on the spec sheet

[@BuzzBazzJ]

That’s the thought I had. Show off what the benefits of the additional RAM would be.

[@HoloScope]

@@Weneedaplague Surprise surprise, there's always more to learn

[@Lando00100]

It took 3 videos before I realized these dev kits are the reason we have so many good mods for the gamecube. Thats awsome.

[@RAPTOR948]

Right after I saw this, I had a feeling someone in the Gamecube modding community is going to try and make a RAM upgrade for the Gamecube. If for no other reason than to just upgrade the RAM.

[@RegalPixelKing]

The GameCube in brown almost looks like a Noctua themed GameCube.

[@MachoNachoProductions]

🤣

[@dcfuksurmom]

@@MachoNachoProductions well now you're obligated to put a Noctua fan in it

[@ardentdrops]

A great way to prevent stickers getting dust under them is to have a blank sticker backing ready to slide under it as soon as it's free.

[@fireaza]

Baking paper also works a treat, that's what I've always used.

[@realdragonrude]

Kind of makes you wonder if this was the rumored wii inside a gamecube shell everyone talked about when the wii was still just a codename (revolution) and not an actual prototype unit

[@konstantine_c]

"Brown color makes the console look like a piece of... candy" 😄

[@CMmeows]

If a 48MB ram mod happens, the GC will go to ludicrous speed.

[@real_synthax]

Time for whacky GC Linux shenanigans. I wonder how high the RAM can really go? Maybe someone could use RAM chips from a dead iBook G3.

[@Kara_Kay_Eschel]

Woah, it went plaid!

[@mirabilis]

Just get a Wii.

[@PaulRudd1941]

​@@mirabilisfr

[@RavenShinyThings]

Nintendo wii would be the best bet to mod surely

[@blackishjustin]

Channels like this one are why I'm glad the internet exists. So much knowledge and education to be gained. Thanks for your hard work, Tito. Your videos are, as always, 😙👌!

[@MachoNachoProductions]

Thank you Justin!! 🙏

[@Tornado9797]

The mythical serial port 2 cable! Never thought I'd get to see it, was always curious about the wire coming out of the T-Dev in that one super low resolution picture. Never would've guessed it looked very similar to the SD2SP2 on one end and standard USB-A on the other. Cool stuff!

[@jon4715]

I want the brown shell for my retail console.

[@scpnoobers]

Man I wish I had at least one of the GameCube dev kits. I’m into hardware and I love the game cube. If only I had money

[@Tangeloooh]

Thanks for continuing to make cool videos about the GameCube & bringing all this awesome knowledge. Appreciate your videos

[@ryanawol77]

The word chocolate itself makes me want to eat chocolates.

[@MachoNachoProductions]

Same 😅

[@ryanawol77]

@@MachoNachoProductions 🍫

[@real_synthax]

6:25 if it doesn't show up at all, it may not even be real USB. Some proprietary devices will use an off-the-shelf connector but not use the standard signaling for it, so it just *looks* like USB. Or it's broken, who knows.

[@MachoNachoProductions]

That’s definitely a possibility. It’s strange when I plug it in I get a tone from the computer like a plugged in the device but when I go to check nothing is showing up. I’m assuming a specific driver is needed

[@PLEYOR]

Always look forward to watching these videos on a Thursday. Thanks Tito!

[@MachoNachoProductions]

Thank you 🙏😁

[@HeyLeahBuu]

The closest thing to a Nintendo Wii without crossing that bridge.

[@rickyrns1059]

I wonder if the extra ram helps the games run better? Like, if any ram-heavy romhacks or official games run way better on original hardware for this? If so, then maybe someone could reverse engineer the circuitry to integrate these extra ram modules into retail GameCubes?

[@omegarugal9283]

a wii is basicly a gc with twice tha RAM, just get a wii

[@Kara_Kay_Eschel]

I was wondering if swapping the optical drive from a retail GCN or the GCloader.

[@yellowblanka6058]

No it won’t because the RAM is the same speed, and AFAIK the GameCube doesn’t have any concept of virtual RAM, so there would be no stutters etc. from dumping to the page file like on PCs, the only thing that would change would be allowing for programs/mods requiring more RAM.

[@genderender]

@@omegarugal9283 The wii virtually allocates a specific amount of memory. All memory operations go through this allocator, so you only get the default amount of memory

[@G4RYWithaFour]

could help offset crashes in Melee if you screw around with Debug menu

[@kazinwho]

Fascinating. These videos make me want a Gamecube development system even though I would have zero use for it haha. So cool. Great video!

[@MachoNachoProductions]

Glad you enjoyed the video!

[@MayorMori]

Thank you for another awesome Gamecube video 🙏🏼

[@maryseturcotte2711]

I would really like to see if switching the optical drive would make it able to read GameCube’s game since the mother board is different from a normal GameCube! 😊

[@AlpsSplash]

Love emulating gamecube on my tablet.

[@ericdanielski4802]

Nice. What tablet do you have?

[@mario4everd]

Except in the end, you cant run star wars rogue squadron 3 rebel strike on your tablet XD ppl forget that not everything on dolphin is 100 percent perfect

[@AlpsSplash]

@@ericdanielski4802 m1 iPad 16 GB running dolphin.

[@ericdanielski4802]

@@AlpsSplash Nice buy. That's sounds not so expensive.

[@hawkfeather6802]

We have a blue raspberry and cherry colored dev kits,now we have chocolate!

[@mactep1]

Once the front yellows, its gonna be Noctua themed.

[@RougeOrange]

I would love to own any of these dev units. Awesome to see!

[@ratykat]

What an amazing bit of kit, I wonder what agreement to 2 companies had considering that looks a genuine Nintendo sticker saying tdev. Thanks again for another great video Tito, I hope you're doing well!

[@Roobotics]

I think part of your design theory on this is likely mistaken, SN didn't design this from scratch, almost every component placement and trace are Identical to a stock GC. Capacitors were added to the top side near the usual ram once they realized the caps under it ram HAD to move. They also cleaned up a few of the silkscreen labels along the way, but this was made from source, many text designators and silkscreen references are 100% identical placements and font sizes, so they either licensed the design from Nintendo themselves, or were possibly the original subcontractor Nintendo used for the GC's core design. There's just no way this was derived separately and ended up as similar as it is, with the changes it has. Also some of the large electrolytic caps near the video outputs also got shuffled, I can see where they fought with the existing routing and turned a cap 90 degrees to squeeze it in among two new ones. Hopefully this info helps! I help design PCBs for a living, sharing of source files like those under proper NDA's etc, isn't unheard of.

[@SuperFlashDriver]

It may be great to have these, BUT, what I would love to see is people getting their hands on Gamecube Dev kits to actually make new fan games or new indie games on it for people whom are fans of using physical gamecube hardware to let people burn their discs and play it on their retail Gamecubes....Same with the PS2 dev kits and PS2 consoles.

[@holdup8945]

SHEEESH MAN UR CHANNEL IS GROWING UR CONTENT IS AWESOME CONGRATS 🎉👏

[@TailRecursion]

It's always a good day when Tito uploads a new video, s/o from SWVA!

[@MachoNachoProductions]

Hello! Thank you 🙏😁

[@noah39353]

Crazy how you keep increasing the video quality

[@BehindTheCode_wGerry]

Very cool to see…. Love seeing the console internals. 😎👌

[@sd8213]

Whats more amazing is that the console still have an intact security sticker

[@davidaynsley5817]

did you check to see if the disc has the drivers on it when put into a pc? also is it possible that a driver does exist out there but only 32bit? perhaps it will talk with an OS like windows xp if so.

[@TurboBass]

Was there an appreciable difference in fan noise after putting on the new pads? This was a pretty great and thorough video, I'm always excited to see secret devices from things I remember from my childhood. I wonder if there's a way to pull the BIOS or firmware off of this and put it into a virtual environment such as an emulator, that would be fun.

[@MachoNachoProductions]

Nope didn’t really notice any difference on fan noise. Glad you enjoyed the video!

[@lookitskazzy]

Thermal pads/paste make zero difference in fan noise. If you want a quieter fan, there are plenty of kits that allow you to install Noctua fans

[@TurboBass]

@@lookitskazzy Thermals. If something is poorly transmitting heat then it gets hotter, this tells the system to run the fan at a higher RPM which can sometimes create an audible noise. If you replace the Thermal Interface Material (in this case the thermal pads) then you'll be able to move more heat off the generative part and thus the fan speed will be lower.

[@motodankz4838]

This is such an underrated channel. I love your work man.

[@MachoNachoProductions]

Thank you 🙏😁

[@battmall9785]

Nice Profile pic

[@motodankz4838]

@@battmall9785 you too!

[@AmaroqStarwind]

Somebody should create an all-metal gamecube shell.

[@PrincessRaynebow]

I would absolutely buy that ASAP!!

[@sgdude1337]

I wonder how many games from the Wii library would be able to run on this hypothetically

[@yellowblanka6058]

The Wii also had a revised, faster clock CPU and GPU as well, so games designed for Wii wouldn’t work as well (or at all ) simply because this has the same amount of RAM.

[@animetiddies5619]

Damn, a shame it can't play games without the software ):

[@MachoNachoProductions]

Yeah it’s a bummer! Would be awesome if it could read both NR and retails discs

[@animetiddies5619]

@@MachoNachoProductions That would've been so wicked T.T

[@erik3371]

"Not registering as a device" doesn't sound like a driver issue. A driver won't magically tell it to send bytes over. Sounds more like it's broken if no communication is done on the bus.

[@fearofchicke]

The brown case looks awesome.

[@MachoNachoProductions]

Agreed!

[@ericdanielski4802]

Nice video.

[@retr0ricky]

I wonder if anyone will start making these colour shells, they look amazing! Cool laptop!

[@MachoNachoProductions]

Totally agree! I hope so!

[@bingobot]

great video as usual, but I prefer the old music. such a cool vibe with that jazzy lounge music imho

[@Punmaster9001]

The kind of Devkit they someone could have built F-Zero AX on

[@Ray-bs6qv]

"Now that ive got you right where i want!!!!! I'd like to buy your Chocolate Gamecube"

[@ghostmopreal]

hoping modders can find a way to double ram on retail systems too 🥵

[@MachoNachoProductions]

That would be incredibly interesting! Not sure how useful it would be but very cool none the less!

[@PrincessRaynebow]

​@@MachoNachoProductionsWhat about something similar to the Xbox 1.6 RAM upgrade? Just speculation, of course

[@taiga-kazuma]

Great videos man keep it up

[@Mchenrygames]

just learned something new Thanks

[@ardentdrops]

Now I'm craving tootsie rolls 🤤

[@stephenshelottiii3272]

Great video once again!! I like seeing these different dev kits.

[@MachoNachoProductions]

Thanks Stephen! Glad you enjoyed the video!

[@joshuahowell6827]

With this GameCube having more RAM, I wonder if the Triforce Arcade racing games will work with it or not. They work with Wii because the Wii has more RAM than a regular GameCube. The games don't work with regular GameCube due to it not having enough RAM.

[@kulilin3104]

I stopped using a heatgun for removing stickers and just started using a hair dryer on high due to it being much safer, yet work extremely well.

[@GameBoyGuru]

I wonder if you could double the RAM in a retail Game Cube, whether or not it would be addressable, similar to COU and RAM upgrades in a stock OG Xbox. Would be interesting to see how some games would respond.

[@kneesnap1041]

I bet you could test how games would respond by doing this in an emulator

[@karisasani7006]

If it does work as intended, it should load games in half the time that a normal one does

[@rebmcr]

Could you attach a retail optical drive to that board?

[@TylerSteven9]

I've seen the NR units before but I had no idea this brown one existed.

[@Knivesisi]

You should swap the disk drive with a retail version and see if retail games run better

[@samkilgore7227]

They wouldn't run any differently unless the retail game itself was modified and uncapped from it's memory limits it has coded in for retail systems.

[@Knivesisi]

fair point but hear me out. If a game like animal crossing is small enough to load completely into ram and you can remove the disk, then there should be a bigger game that can also load into the 48MB of ram without the disk

[@mrmxypltk]

@@Knivesisi That's not how those games would work. Animal Crossing was programmed to be able to load itself entirely into ram. Just because the system has more ram, doesn't mean any of the retail games would be programmed to take advantage of that.

[@nojuanatall3281]

Animal crossing is more of an expansion to the N64 game animal forest. So it's not exactly demanding in the way that F zero would be.

[@boydpukalo8980]

Fascinating

[@lain328]

If we could get the extra ram on retail units I could see patches for 720/1080 working. Seen it done for Super Smash Bros. before.

[@ViewpointProd]

Reguarding the whole "Streaming the game to the hardware over burning a disc" is a misnomer in a way, burning a new build to a disk dosent happen unless it's a milestone build afaik, since there can be hundreds of thousands of builds, some with the only differences being a few bytes and that's it, Those instread can be played on hardware over the PC, while the PC displays debug information and what not. Streaming games to the hardware directly was and still is common practice afaik.

[@jonnyfatboy7563]

8:50 behold.. the Holy grail ...The prehistoric Nintendo employee fingerprint hehe

[@cydragon2.099]

does the ram help with any GC games to use 60fps?

[@merman1974]

Very interesting, I love the colour.

[@taiga-kazuma]

I was a collector years ago until 2020 and i had many game cubes but i never heard of that

[@TrashfordKent]

Silly question but there’s no pc software on the disc?

[@LBSiUK]

Please upload at 4K! These videos are too good for KZbin's compression to ruin! (And maybe bump to 30fps, kinda prefer it.)

[@Riz2336]

That's pretty cool. Lot of dev kits made for gamcube

[@JoducusKwak]

since you can play retail games by replacing the disc drive, would it give you any advantage to have more ram?

[@chadwolf3840]

Could you install a xeno on the drive to be able to play retail games? I’d be curious if the extra memory makes the games run better.

[@1NIGHTMAREGAMER]

couldnt have you used a hair dryer on max setting to soften the glue

[@anon_y_mousse]

Or isopropyl alcohol to dissolve it and just do away with it.

[@thatzaliasguy]

I want to mod this thing with GCLoader to play "backed up" retail games, hehe

[@wanderingrock6756]

I was wondering, as you've done lots of GameCube video what would you say are the best mods to put on it. I recently got a Japanese GameCube for the sake of modding. I am looking into the Bluetooth controller port you showed. And the M2 video you showed.

[@lIIllIIllIIl]

Love your videos keep it up 👍

[@Coldsteak]

if it's not even showing up as an unknown device in device manager, it's possible that the USB is running a raw serial connection

[@Nordlicht05]

How much ram does the wii provide in gamecube mode? The same or more than a standart gc? I mean the wii is in some way an overclocked newer gc.

[@Evercade_Effect]

Very cool dude!!!!

[@johnhaywood9856]

You need ProDG software from SN Systems

[@TotallyBCK]

this is so cool!

[@splynncryth]

It looks like the Cypress USB chip is an FX2 USB controller. I don't see a ROM chip on the board, and IIRC there is a default mode the chip can boot into that enables it to download firmware over USB, then reboot with the firmware. That means the actual firmware will be included wih whatever software is needed to run the devkit. I would guess the CPLD is glue logic for the port. IIRC the FX2 wasn't great at bit-banging custom interfaces.

[@bubblegumgun3292]

ah yes the Noctua Edition

[@MusharnaMush]

looks tasty, *crunch crunch*

[@johntitor7856]

Altera -> Alterna is in Splatoon 3 the game inspire from the Squid boss of Mario Sunshine on Game Gube

[@MrGamecubeVT]

Oh how I wish the region mod switch was included in retail switches. The mod itself is simple but the TDEV switch looks SO CLEAN

[@KurisuDE]

Why did you change your intro? That song was like one of the most perfect instrumental songs ever created.

[@MrCleetSR388]

That was kewl thanks

[@Matando]

0:28 It's always what's on the inside that matters Tito :)

[@kyky121911]

I wanna see one of these modded with a Pico boot or a gcloader to see what happens

[@liric_empyric]

But does it taste like chocolate is the question

[@crazyone3494]

Wait 48Mb of memory on a GC DevKit? It must be the VRAM from the ATI Flipper chip, because, as far as i remember the retail GC has 64Mb of RDRAM for it's system...

[@LVNeptune]

Typo in description "Nintnedo"

[@amdintelxsniperx]

i remember going to a goodwill and seeing a bunch of gamecubes in the electronics area i saw a brown gamecube . i had no idea it was a devkit so i left it with the others lol god i feel dumb now lol

[@Budswithnick]

New intro, nice

[@MachoNachoProductions]

Thanks! This is the intro I use when I’m not doing mods. I don’t use it often but I’m so glad you like it 🙏😁

[@clintoncronin2504]

Extra memory is probably there to allow devs to execute code with debug output turned on, or to run dev versions of the GameCube OS that has similar requirements . There are potentially other dev tools that run on the system that aid in executing various component tests on a very rudimentary level to validate functionality larger dev houses would be able to facilitate with standalone hardware & procedures. This is kind of like the Nintendo attempt at making their own version of the Net Yaroze

[@James_D.]

Nice!

[@ericdanielski4802]

Absolutely.

[@sandrew8936]

Is that a X230 ThinkPad?

[@BlueZaddy]

The ram actually wasn't the weak link, that was the disc size

[@mrwang420]

Now it's the Sony NS-TDEV Nintendo Gamecube Dev kit. Lol

[@erik3371]

"Used to use the sp2sd adapter" what do you use the today Tito? 😊