Over in Japan, the NES was called the Nintendo Famicom, or Family Computer. Like the SNES, or Super Famicom that followed it, the original Famicom — launched in 1983 — looked a lot different from the one that was sold in the rest of the world.
In this exclusive gallery, shot in exquisite detail by the folks at iFixit, we take a look inside the spiritual home of Mario, part of a series showing off iFixit’s new set of console repair guides.
Originally, the Famicom was white. This aging specimen, picked up by iFixit boss Kyle Wiens, is a rather more discolored beige. The hideous burgundy details are pretty close to the original, though.
The RCA Studio II is already a pretty rare sight as is, but rarer still is a detailed look inside what’s been described as one of the worst game consoles of all time. Thankfully, the folks at iFixit have now come through once again, and followed up their dissection of the Magnavox Odyssey 100 with a teardown of the circa-1977 “Home TV Programmer.” In addition to an abundance of beige, the team also discovered a considerable amount of solder that’s characteristic of 70s electronics, and even a few surprises like some white chip packages that are rarely (if ever) used these days. Hit up the link below for the complete blow-by-blow, and keep en eye out for even more vintage gadget teardowns during the rest of the week.
The fine people at iFixit have taken the extremely awesome step of tearing down some very retro gear this week, and up first, they’ve got the Magnavox Odyssey 100 which dates from 1975. The gaming console, which boasted two (count them ) games — Tennis and Hockey — was built around four Texas Instruments chips and powered by six C batteries. It was also the first home gaming console, so we were pretty interested in seeing its insides. What struck us in looking at the photos was the most obvious thing: how much emptier it is than modern gadgets. It was also completely dismantled in just seven steps. Hit the source for more photos and keep your eye out for more vintage disassemblies as the week progresses.
Our friends at iFixit have made short work of the Dell Streak, doing what they do best. They’ve torn apart everyone’s favorite giant mobile phone (or is it a tiny tablet?), and found some interesting innards in the process. iFixit reports that the Streak is extremely easy to disassemble, and inside they found a Qualcomm QSD8250 Snapdragon CPU, and cameras which they report are “similar” to those found inside the iPhone 4. There’s nothing earth-shattering here, though iFixit’s taken the Dell Streak teardown as an opportunity to debut a new “fixability” rating — and you’ll be happy to know that this baby has scored an 8 out of 10. Hit up the source for the full rundown.
Dell’s Android-powered Streak is an intriguing device. Billed as a tablet but priced and sold like a phone, the Streak has more in common with the HTC Evo and Droid X than it does with the iPad.
Teardown specialists iFixit decided to drill into the Streak to see what its internals look like.
Dell has designed the device so that a mechanical engineering degree is not required for a successful disassembly, says iFixit, which was able to reverse engineer the assembly process within minutes.
The Streak’s 5-inch LCD screen has a layer called ‘Gorilla Glass’ on top that is scratch resistant and durable. The LCD is bonded to the front panel glass to increase the strength of the device, as well as the sensitivity of the capacitive touch panel. But that is also likely to increase the cost of fixing the device if you break just the glass.
The front panel’s construction means the device should be able to withstand drops from above waist height, says iFixit.
The 1530 mAh battery on the Streak is easily replaceable and is covered with a sheet of steel, rather than plastic, to decrease its overall thickness.
Streak has a second 2 GB microSD card near the top of the motherboard that holds system and applications files.
The “C”-shaped motherboard of the device comes out easily after disconnecting some cables, says iFixit, and all components are attached to this motherboard.
Overall, the Streak rates high for the ease with which its battery can be replaced and the use of standard connectors for the cables.
But the rear panel feels cheap, says iFixit, and deforms easily. That’s disappointing for a device that costs nearly $600.
The Motorola Droid 2 looks a lot like the original Droid, and a teardown reveals that the similarities go more than skin-deep.
In fact, the internal layout and most of the Droid 2’s components are nearly identical to those of the original Droid, gadget repair site iFixit found.
The most significant upgrade is to the processor, which is probably a Texas Instruments OMAP 3630, iFixit says. Running at 1 GHz, that compares to the 600-MHz processor in the original Droid.
The phone now supports fast 802.11n Wi-Fi.
The keyboard is also different, with a tighter, more durable-seeming slider mechanism and no D-pad, which makes for a more spacious key layout.
But the rest of the specs — and even the circuit boards — look remarkably similar to the first Droid. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, the Motorola engineers must have figured.
It’s got the same 8-megabit NAND flash memory module, and comes with the same 8-GB micro SD card for storing apps, music, photos and other files.
As with the first Droid, there’s a secondary microphone that helps cancel out background noise to make call quality clearer.
A 5-megapixel rear-facing camera has a dual-LED flash. It supports 30 fps video recording, compared to the original Droid’s 24 fps. Otherwise the camera is pretty similar to the original one’s.
The display is the same as the first Droid’s: a 3.7-inch, 854 x 480-pixel WVGA LCD screen.
It’s been less than a full day since Verizon’s Droid 2 hit shelves (or two, if you count Sam’s Club) but the fine folks at iFixit have already managed to make their phone explode into… 24 pieces, if we’re counting right. Amazingly enough, the internal construction is almost exactly the same despite Motorola’s near-doubling of the horsepower (and addition of 802.11n) inside. You’ll find a nigh-identical logic board, speaker, camera and LCD screen — not to mention the exact same battery, which means original Droid owners will have a handy swap — and what looks like the exact same steps (but Torx screwdrivers required) to take the clever puzzle of plastic and metal apart. Not that you’d necessarily want to do the same to your new handset — It’s days like this we’re glad iFixit is here to take that bullet for us.
Well, we knew it wouldn’t take very long, and it didn’t: iFixit’s gotten its hands on Apple’s Magic Trackpad and ripped it to shreds. This is one operation they’re not shy about calling delicate, folks — this thing is seriously thin and its components packed in quite lovingly. So what’s going on in there? Well, besides the magical dust, they found a Broadcom BCM2042 chip, which is the same one the Magic Mouse uses for Bluetooth connectivity, and a Broadcom BCM5974 touchscreen controller chip, which also powers the iPhone and iPod touch. There is plenty to be seen in the photos at the source, and there’s one more below.
You didn’t think the folks at iFixit would simply teardown the iPhone 4 and call it a day, did you? They’ve now gone the extra mile and done a detailed teardown of the iPhone 4’s gyroscope with a little help from Chipworks. That’s of course a MEMS (or microelectromechanical system) gyroscope and, according to Chipworks, nearly identical to an off-the-shelf STMicroelectronics L3G4200D gyroscope, which is actually what they used for the teardown. What’s more, they also went even further and put another gyroscope (not used in the iPhone 4) under an electron microscope just to illustrate how incredibly complex and minute the structure of MEMS gyroscopes are. Head on past the break for a glimpse of that, and hit up the link below for the complete teardown.
Teardown king iFixit posted this exploded view of the iPhone 4.
Hardware and software tests of the iPhone 4 and iOS 4 have started to show up, and there are a few surprises. Those brand-new iPad owners looking jealously at the fancy new iPhone can relax, though: The iPad is still the fastest piece of Apple mobile hardware out there.
MacRumors has run the numbers using benchmark Geekbench and Checkup apps for iOS, and although the tests were complicated by the fact that not all the test software runs on all the platforms, the iPad came out tops, closely followed by the iPhone 4, with the iPhone 3G coming in last.
This is a little mysterious, as iFixit, the King of the Teardown, has already ripped open the iPhone4 to reveal that it does indeed use the same 1-GHz A4 processor as the iPad, and also has double the RAM (512 MB vs. 256 MB). We strongly suspect that the chip is being underclocked inside the iPhone to both keep things cooler in the tight confines of its case and to conserve battery life.
The iFixit teardown reveals some other surprises. The battery is not soldered in place, making it easy to replace. Very easy, in fact, as the two screws on the bottom edge release the back glass-plate panel, giving instant access to the battery. Not so good is the new bonded display. It may be tougher, and make the pixels look closer to the surface, but the glass, LCD and digitizer are all one unit, meaning cracked screens will be a lot more expensive to replace.
But what of older hardware? Well, if you have the older 3G, you might not want to upgrade the OS. Flickr user Adrian Nier has posted a side-by-side video of two iPhone 3Gs, one running the new iOS4 and the other still on iOS 3.1.3. In the video, he tests the startup time and the camera, loads a web page (the now-traditional NYT, of course), and accesses the settings. Surprisingly, the phone running 3.1.3 is significantly, obviously faster. See for yourself:
This is not so surprising. The iPhone 3G is capable of running iOS4, but doesn’t get many of its goodies, including multitasking. It is also a three-year-old hardware design, and if you bought one back then, you should be eligible for an upgrade to the new iPhone anyway. For the record, my latest-gen iPod Touch (32 GB) runs as fast as it did before. There seems to be no slowdown on an already very fast device.
To delve even deeper into the innards of Apple’s latest, head over to Chipworks, which carries on where iFixit leaves off. If you want to see pictures of the new 5-MP camera’s sensor taken with an electron microscope, that’s the place to go.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
