3DO M2 for 25$ on eBay :)

[dhau]

Click here for auction. I ordered two, even though I don't think I'll ever find any media to play

[NFG]

Unreal.   I bought four, but now that I think about it I have no idea why.  =)

[Chuplayer]

10 bucks says it's fake.

[benzaldehyde]

So, what do you do with it? Throw it through store-front windows?

[atom]

I think you fix all the design flaws by mutating it into a mini-itx htpc:

http://mini-itx.com

[dhau]

I kind of needed a nice case to rebuild MSX2+ with all the nifty addons

[Guest]

Ok, somehow I've received only one of two units I've ordered, and here is what I found out:

- M2 unit is very light and very small. About the size of PS2. Much smaller then Xbox;
- unit came with a black 12x Panasonic OEM DVD-ROM drive (SR-8586), made in September 2000 and set as master IDE device;
- motherboard is very spartan, and comes with about ten chips, and four out of ten seem to be DRAM;
- hard drive is a regular 20GB UDMA33 Quantum Fireball (LCT15-20) with single large empty FAT partition with no volume label;

If you turn on the unit, it outputs "Please wait" for about 3 seconds, then it prompts "Please insert the disk". I tried feeding it with DVD Video, but it didn't chew it up, so probably it only runs some M2 specific titles. The power supply is not ATX-inspired like PS2/Xbox, it's a simple AT-like PSU with a power up toggle switch.

This is all for now

[dhau]

Previous message is mine. In addition I would like to add Panasonic FZ-35S specs from manual:

- built-in CD-ROM or DVD-ROM
- optional superdrive (1.44MB/120MB IDE floppy drive) or IDE HDD
- PowerPC602 CPU (66.7MHz), motherboard has place for second CPU
- 16 MBytes of SDRAM and 128 KBytes of battery backed SRAM
- Video out: RGB (VGA 640x480) or S-Video/Composite NTSC, 16 mln colors
- 16-bit PCM stereo output
- two serial ports for modem and / or touchpad
- PS/2 keyboard and mouse ports
- DB-25 parallerl port
- proprietary DB-9 controller port
- 1 expansion slot for optional network card (I don't have it)
- weights about 7.7lbs (3.5 kg)

And here are the stickers from IDE HDD and DVD-ROM:

[atom]

Man, I thought the 3D0 died long before the year 2000. I thought it was that crappy thing between the saturn and the playstation. Werent there some awful zelda video games made by digital photography?

[Chuplayer]

The September 2000 manufacture tag annoys me.

[Chuplayer]

Hey, what if this was a prototype Nuon sort of system that just happened to use M2 hardware? That would explain the DVD drive.

[dhau]

- I don't think that getting a nice brand-name 12x DVD-ROM that works fine with PC is annoying;

- no, it's not a prototype NUON, it uses PowerPC CPU, not the custom Aires 3 core;

- 3DO died in 2004, but they quit hardware business after selling M2 technology to Matsushita in 1998 and concentrated on making games: mostly Might & Magic Heroes series (acuired with New World Computing) and infamous Small Soldiers;

- FZ-35J is not a DVD player and/or game console. It is based on M2 technology, originally developed by 3DO as a next-gen 3DO gaming console. Panasonic bought this technology and decided to nix all consumer product ideas, based on it. It wasn't a big loss, trust me. People who played M2-based arcade games from Konami told that M2's 3D performance is more in line with Playstation rather then something like Dreamcast;

A new fact: the hard drive in this unit is quite special. It's a 20GB IDE hard drive with a non-standard 4400 RPM, which (according to Quantum sales pitches) provides superior noice characteristics

[Lesmot]

I think that's worth the money for the drives. Too bad it's well past closed.  

[citykids]

Man, I thought the 3D0 died long before the year 2000. I thought it was that crappy thing between the saturn and the playstation. Werent there some awful zelda video games made by digital photography?

Atom,  I think you're refering to the Phillips CD-I machine that came out before the 3DO. They had a deal with Nintendo to produce licensed games for their machine, and yes they were totally ass!  

Dhau, out of curiousity did you try playing original 3DO software on your M2?  I think I remember Next Generation magazine saying it would be backwards compatible.  

[Akir]

That's strange, I saw a panasonic "Interactive Media Player." I didn't see anything M2, except that it said that it played M2-CDs and DVDs. What are those, anyways?

I wrote this, then I esxamined the article more closely. I thought that the 3DO was an arcade system...?

[NFG]

it said that it played M2-CDs and DVDs. What are those, anyways?

I wrote this, then I esxamined the article more closely. I thought that the 3DO was an arcade system...?

May I please refer you to this post, specifically part one.