A few months ago, I showed images of a Pippin motherboard for sale in Japan, apparently a prototype. I purchased the board in question and finally took the time to take photos and test it.
As I explained, it doesn’t have the same reference: AP2705-02 (1995) vs. 820-0971-92 (1996) on a commercial console. And it’s missing quite a few chips: no Zilog chip, no RAM, no flash memory. Once connected to a power supply, it technically starts up (for example, a CD-ROM drive receives power), but that’s all. I don’t get any display, whether in VGA or composite, nor… anything. I tried with several ROMs, installing RAM extensions (yes, without RAM, it couldn’t really start), but without success.
The prototype
Missing a few chips here
And here too
Same on the back: no RAM
The commercial version
A few more chips (though some are missing on the final one as well)
Same here.
