So this little guy has been sitting on my shelf for a few years now, and I finally decided to let it go.  Its marked 8 of 9 which I found pretty interesting.  Take a look!
http://www.ebay.com/itm/201483663...
 

Very cool, but I don't think it's marked "8 of 9," as you suggest. I think it's HEX "80F9." Prototypes don't typically have planned production amounts, there are no spaces, and there is some 4-character HEX on the CHR chip as well ("CD56"). It's probably a CRC value or something.

Yeah, you could directly check to see if it is the same as the released game by checking the checksums from the final game using those values.