rancor wrote:bytestorm wrote:
as low as 100 GBP (150 usd) for a kit..?? and overall value seems to be 100-140 GBP (150-220 usd) in the valuations thread
Citations plz. I just bought a NOS kit from G-Front, never opened, never used for Y35,000 ($370), and I considered that a steal. Usually bare boards go for around that price on the forums here, and you'll probably pay about that much to import one from Japan. If you've found a $150 kit, jump on that shit without a second thought.
A brand new Ibara kit that hasn't been initialized, that's cool to have/own just for the novelity factor alone. You don't see those out there in the wilds much nowadays.
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What's interesting about getting ahold of an SH-3 Ibara PCB is, eventually, you'll have to replace the RTC (Real Time Clock) battery on-board the PCB itself so that it retains the correct clock and calendar date settings. Otherwise, it'll be showing the wrong time (if somewhat slower than real time) if the button cell lithium battery's voltage drops below a certain point. On a single demo stage, it does show the correct time including hour hands, minute hands and second hands present as well. How cool is that? On the later SH-3 PCBs, Cave did away with the RTC functionality to save on production costs (i.e. -- the CV-1000 D revision PCBs come to mind like with DDP-DFK version 1.5, DDP-DFK Black Label, Akai Katana and DDP-SDOJ as they don't have battery backed-up RTC functionality whatsoever to begin with -- if you were to do a side-by-side visual comparision of those previously listed Cave PCBs, you'll see none on-board).
Even Cave's arcade puzzler of SH-3 powered Mushihime-tama PCB came with a RTC battery on-board.
Not to mention, there's a cool hidden Ibara "Special Version" mode easter egg to unlock once you get your hands on a Ibara PCB. How cool is that?
If your budget will allow for an Ibara full kit, I'd go for such a mint complete kit of Ibara to start off your Cave arcade PCB collection with a big bang. Can't go wrong going that particular route.
PC Engine Fan X! ^_~