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According to the Wiki;

Quote

This BIOS was first found in the Game Gear systems released in 2000 by Majesco, but has since been confirmed to be found in many later Game Gear systems.

Both of my Game Gears have date stamps for 1993 inside them; neither contain a reference to Majesco as far as I can see (on the boxes or internally) yet both have the blue BIOS bumper screen. Both have identical innards.
The only other clue I can find is that the main board has "Europe" printed on it, but I don't know how much (if at all?) the Game Gears differed by region, save TV tuner compatibility (though I assume the TV tuner itself handles converting the signals to a standard format any GG can use).
Am I misinterpreting something?

When the Majesco Game Gears came out in 2000, there was an interest in finding what differences they had - no colour on the screen protector, "blacker" plastic, no screw hole for the TV tuner, a BIOS bumper screen, 1-ASIC internal design, etc. This BIOS bumper was duly dumped and labelled as the "Majesco GG BIOS". Then people started pointing out that some original Sega GGs were the same. Thus, in the Wiki I attempted to explain that the BIOS is not just in the Majesco systems, but is in fact found in lots of "later" GGs - ie, it was added in a revision some time after the launch. It has been suggested that it was done at the same time as the Mega Drive introduced its "produced by or under licence from" bumper screen - apparently that gave them some kind of legal position to attack unlicenced developers because their games weren't "produced by or under licence", but instead you'd get bumper screens on a lot of devices saying "the previous screen was wrong, this product is not licenced or endorsed by..." which apparently did the trick.

Feel free to embellish the Wiki with a better wording, and maybe add in the 1993 date as a starting point.

As for TV tuner compatibility, I'm 99% sure it's been proved that all GGs use NTSC timing internally. The TV tuner interface is not well documented, but is presumably a similar digital RGB format to that tapped by the people using it for TV-out mods. I don't think anyone's experimented much with different TV tuners and different region GGs to see what happens.

Ah, thanks. I had assumed the "later" part meant later than the Majesco Game Gears. (Though, how there could have been "later" models of note since 2000 doesn't make much sense).

Author	Message
benryves Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 391 Location: London, United Kingdom	[ Game Gear ] BIOS, Majesco, and the year 2000 Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:26 pm
	According to the Wiki; Quote This BIOS was first found in the Game Gear systems released in 2000 by Majesco, but has since been confirmed to be found in many later Game Gear systems. Both of my Game Gears have date stamps for 1993 inside them; neither contain a reference to Majesco as far as I can see (on the boxes or internally) yet both have the blue BIOS bumper screen. Both have identical innards. The only other clue I can find is that the main board has "Europe" printed on it, but I don't know how much (if at all?) the Game Gears differed by region, save TV tuner compatibility (though I assume the TV tuner itself handles converting the signals to a standard format any GG can use). Am I misinterpreting something?

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14998 Location: London	Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 12:37 pm
	When the Majesco Game Gears came out in 2000, there was an interest in finding what differences they had - no colour on the screen protector, "blacker" plastic, no screw hole for the TV tuner, a BIOS bumper screen, 1-ASIC internal design, etc. This BIOS bumper was duly dumped and labelled as the "Majesco GG BIOS". Then people started pointing out that some original Sega GGs were the same. Thus, in the Wiki I attempted to explain that the BIOS is not just in the Majesco systems, but is in fact found in lots of "later" GGs - ie, it was added in a revision some time after the launch. It has been suggested that it was done at the same time as the Mega Drive introduced its "produced by or under licence from" bumper screen - apparently that gave them some kind of legal position to attack unlicenced developers because their games weren't "produced by or under licence", but instead you'd get bumper screens on a lot of devices saying "the previous screen was wrong, this product is not licenced or endorsed by..." which apparently did the trick. Feel free to embellish the Wiki with a better wording, and maybe add in the 1993 date as a starting point. As for TV tuner compatibility, I'm 99% sure it's been proved that all GGs use NTSC timing internally. The TV tuner interface is not well documented, but is presumably a similar digital RGB format to that tapped by the people using it for TV-out mods. I don't think anyone's experimented much with different TV tuners and different region GGs to see what happens.

benryves Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 391 Location: London, United Kingdom	Posted: Mon Feb 06, 2006 1:03 pm
	Ah, thanks. I had assumed the "later" part meant later than the Majesco Game Gears. (Though, how there could have been "later" models of note since 2000 doesn't make much sense).

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