Purchased 2006 iPhone 2G Prototype board, seeking any available information.

[DeejayvybeZ]

Hi guys, this is my first thread on MacRumors.com and I must say I have indulged in such a diverse forum of everything apple, something here has always helped me when in need, however when you stumble across something as rare as a 2006-manufactured iPhone 2G logic board, there's next to no support online and without sending it to the dev-team, I would like any available information on it as you guys can provide me with.

Firstly it was purchased from a laptop battery supplier in Columbia, Missouri. He claimed it was pulled from a November 2006 2G Prototype, with serial number "J56480033V9K7" printed on a sticker on the board shield. I am assuming that "J5" is a development sector within apple HQ, and the "648" is year and month, however a 3rd party repairer such as myself wouldn't be the wiser.

I am facing a problem with operating the board. I am only getting a white screen. When I power it up, (battery connected, and plugged into my my pc) the screen fades on and fades off, and after 4 seconds of waiting, it appears to power on. As it does this, windows detects an unknown device as "iPod" and iTunes refuses to recognize this. As it is a prototype im not expecting any solution, however I would like to know its rarity and how much value it holds in its condition, and possibly getting it to operate correctly.

Thanks in advance!

 

[DeejayvybeZ]

UPDATE: here I have a photo of the board. The gold sim reader housing is unique to the prototype models, everything else appears to be the same besides the "PB-free" solder indicator printed on the PCB.

 

[MacTech68]

The closest you might get to data on this might be a google search for:

820-2106 m68

Not exact but pretty darn close.

As for it's value, I have no idea. It will depend on what the market thinks (obviously), but as for rarity, it would have to be quite rare.

 

[Brian Y]

Hi guys, this is my first thread on MacRumors.com and I must say I have indulged in such a diverse forum of everything apple, something here has always helped me when in need, however when you stumble across something as rare as a 2006-manufactured iPhone 2G logic board, there's next to no support online and without sending it to the dev-team, I would like any available information on it as you guys can provide me with.

Firstly it was purchased from a laptop battery supplier in Columbia, Missouri. He claimed it was pulled from a November 2006 2G Prototype, with serial number "J56480033V9K7" printed on a sticker on the board shield. I am assuming that "J5" is a development sector within apple HQ, and the "648" is year and month, however a 3rd party repairer such as myself wouldn't be the wiser.

I am facing a problem with operating the board. I am only getting a white screen. When I power it up, (battery connected, and plugged into my my pc) the screen fades on and fades off, and after 4 seconds of waiting, it appears to power on. As it does this, windows detects an unknown device as "iPod" and iTunes refuses to recognize this. As it is a prototype im not expecting any solution, however I would like to know its rarity and how much value it holds in its condition, and possibly getting it to operate correctly.

Thanks in advance!

It wont hold much value in all honesty. It's not a very early prototype - in fact it's probably one of the latest prototypes. Yours is #2106, release boards were #2209 (or somewhere around that). J5 is the factory it was made in (this was probably a factory production run test rather than an actual prototype).The 648 stands for 2006 week 48. Specifically this board was the 3rd made that week in December 2006 .

And iTunes won't recognise it - iTunes will only detect and use known models. Since they're not encrypted, the best way to get it working would be to do a complete clone from a working release product - no available version of iTunes will be able to restore it.

 

[DeejayvybeZ]

Thanks for that Brian, exactly what I needed however if you are saying this was (possibly) a factory-run board, why does its cosmetic characteristics not match a production board? I understand also that it is one of the latest prototypes, yet a guy back in 2009 purchased two with serials dating to mid December and early December one being operational with dummy software. Furthermore I also believe that Steve kept software and hardware devs apart to due to possible publicity issues, do you suppose maybe this a dummy hardware unit? Or perhaps vice versa? I've never heard of factory "J5" even after decoding the serial I can't figure it out. Very strange units they are aren't they?

 

[DeejayvybeZ]

The closest you might get to data on this might be a google search for:

820-2106 m68

Not exact but pretty darn close.

As for it's value, I have no idea. It will depend on what the market thinks (obviously), but as for rarity, it would have to be quite rare.

Thanks mate, was able to locate schematics from that search. Will definitely have a play with it when I get to work

 

[SonnyDickson]

UPDATE: here I have a photo of the board. The gold sim reader housing is unique to the prototype models, everything else appears to be the same besides the "PB-free" solder indicator printed on the PCB.

Hey Mate! Do you still have this device?

 

[CooperBox]

Hey Mate! Do you still have this device?

I note that the OP as a new member was last seen/posted over 5 years ago, so it'd unlikely that he will see/reply to this. Hope he can prove me wrong however.

 

[MacTech68]

Some years later there seems to be more information regarding 820-2106 on the inter-webs.

Whilst I haven't chased the specific schematics, they appear to exist for the SPECIFIC board 820-2106, thus-ly ;

 

[SonnyDickson]

I note that the OP as a new member was last seen/posted over 5 years ago, so it'd unlikely that he will see/reply to this. Hope he can prove me wrong however.

Spoke to him the other day still has the Board.