I am trying to figure out if this airball prototype on eBay is legitimate:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/272522057...

There was a rumor that there was some fake airball prototypes going around and that makes me gun shy. The soldering is also of lower quality than I am used to on prototypes. If it is a fake, I have no idea where they got the PCB. It does not look like any production PCBs that I know of. 

Why would any prototype have a blockbuster sticker on it?

that looks fake. why would a legit airball proto have been in a blockbuster? and him making a big deal about the sticker trying to sell it as legit just seems shady.

edit: after doing some digging, airball roms are marked as unrom and there are no other unrom tengen games I can find. the board looks legit. the shell doesn't show any signs of previous retail labels either. so, I don't like it but I think it has to be legit despite the fishy story.

Pretty standard for Tengen PCBs to look like that instead of the normal green.  Still very fishy, and I would figure out the AMD date code format first.

Maybe this proto was a Blockbuster exclusive...  
 

That was one of my first thoughts, but my googlefu is failing me. Everything I find about EPROMs in general explains about a four digit dating scheme. This EPROM obviously does not follow this scheme. Everything I am finding is about AMD in specific is about their CPUs. I did find a cool technical document listing all of the speed and storage specs of the AM2700 line, but no date code information.

As for why it blockbuster stickers on it, it was probably in a blockbuster. As to how it got there, I don't know. The manager knew a guy?

It even comes with proto art work.

I think this is legit, and I'll tell you why: the only source we have access to for that box art is a pretty small thumbnail in a magazine ad. From the photograph alone I can tell that the box art in the auction is significantly more detailed than that source image, which either means this box art was redrawn by the bootlegger, or it's real.

An unreleased unlicensed game in a shop doesn't strike me as that crazy, especially considering it's Tengen, which at this time was running promotions to encourage people to rent its games in order to strike back at Nintendo, which was suing places like Blockbuster trying to PREVENT rentals.

Unfortunately this means that the only known Airball box was hacked up to go in a rental case which...yikes.

Real or not, that artwork is epic.

It was the box that really turned my thinking around on this one. I am still having a hard time finding the date the EPROM was produced. At first I thought the front of the box was a trimmed version of the retrozone release. Then I realized It couldn't be. Then the next most likely thing was art from a different version. It took me a while to dig up the alternate art, but I couldn't find anything similar. 

Does anyone know where they got the art for the retrozone addition? 
 

AFAIK all the fan copies use the magazine ad photo I mentioned with some Photoshop filtering to make it not look as bad (it's very small, you can't get much detail). That particular piece of art was not use on any other release of Airball, it was specific to the Tengen NES version.

Very interesting.

It was essentially redrawn over the low res magazine ad that Frank is talking about.  So the level of detail is there since it is all new, but it keeps the same proportions as the original.

Chips, dates, title screen are all a little different then my copy but I think its legit.

It looks like the seller poked a hole through the back label to open it I guess he doesn't know the take out the two screws and shake trick to remove boards for unlicensed games

What is the trick for dumping airball? I know people had a hard time dumping it at first.

Do you know how to date the EPROM? I have been looking all day and still have not been able to figure it out. It is driving me nuts.

that seems like a pretty high price for something that's been widely available for a while. anyone here win it?

No trick, it just used a mapper type that wasn't well documented for a while but is now a simple CopyNES plugin afaik

That would be a trick for someone who has only ever used the program on RetroUSB.com. I have been searching for the last hour and have not found anything.
 

I don't know who won but I did ask my brother to bid for me since I was going to be at a wedding. Apparently he misunderstood my bid amount. He bid over my requested amount for whatever reason. Fortunately, I was outbid at the end because I don't back out of auctions but it would have hurt to pay that much. I thought it would end for around $400 or less. The actual buyer has low feedback, so who knows if they will follow through.

looking at some bootgod entries for comparison i think 036 = 1990 week 36
 

it's UNROM equivalent isn't it? how long have the protos been in collector hands and when was it first dumped?

That thought crossed my mind, but I didn't know how to eliminate 2000 or 1980 etc. I am sure the prototype is legitimate, but while I was doing research I wanted to make sure the EPROM was made at an appropriate time. Thank you for confirming my suspicion about 036.
 

I know that it can be made to run on UNROM, but I don't know if it can be dumped by just selecting UNROM in the copyNES menu.