Author Topic: Irregularity with Famicom PCB dates?  (Read 2038 times)

Calypso76

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Irregularity with Famicom PCB dates?
« on: February 15, 2020, 12:01:47 PM »
Okay, today I learned how to read the PCB dates on (Super) Famicom PCBs.

However, I'm confused by a date like EL860339C (Donkey Kong Country 4 and Tiny Toons Adventures 6 reprints from March 1999)

86 indicates it was manufactured in 1997
03 should be March
But what's with the 39? I thought maybe the 'C' could stand for calendar week, but the 39th week of 1997 was in September. Or is it 3 for March and 9 for 99? But then why would they stamp it with a 1997 date? Is it a revisional/reprint date? Or is the code meant to be read like this:

released-1997-march-revised-march-99

MLX

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Re: Irregularity with Famicom PCB dates?
« Reply #1 on: February 22, 2020, 07:41:48 PM »
It appears to be a single identifier for this specific month. The factory-ies that used these codes likely produced more than a batch of one specific PCB per day. Two consecutives production run of different PCB happening the same month would likely get consecutives identifier.