Ark Area strange pcb

[Loris Biaggi]

Hi, I have an Ark Area pcb that looks strange.
Look at the pics, the first one is mine, there is not an UPL logo, under the sticker there is an "Artis" logo...
The second one is taken from this forum, original UPL board.
As you can see the board is almost the same with few differences... anyone can explain why?
What is Artis? Is this board a boot? Another licensed version?

[trap15]

My guess would be a licensed board, yeah.

[Ixmucane2]

Some details of the PCBs clearly show a different production run and design, for example:

• The UPL board has printed white text near the edge
• The UPL board has a blue component near the connector and the microswitch banks (middle right side)
• The resistor array near the connector is soldered less neatly in the non-UPL board
• Some capacitors are different (particularly the large blue one near the UPL sticker, lower right, vs. two vertical ones in the other board)

On the other hand the traces and holes in the boards look so similar, far beyond what would be plausible for a reverse-engineered board (for example, there's an outline and a hole for the aforementioned large blue capacitor), that the non-UPL board must have been produced from the PCB designs of the original or assembled in a different factory, with some adaptation to different components, from a surplus original PCB.

[emphatic]

I have a Ninja Kid II PCB that's missing the suicide sound CPU of the original. The PCBs are near identical, so probably an aftermarket/licensed board. This might be something UPL did often...

[Loris Biaggi]

Thanks for answers, so... can i exclude that it's a boot?