The following 8 NAND dumps are from various DSi development units (and 2 retail), some of which were used for developing the Classroom DSi and MangaON. Each console is briefly explained below, along with downloads links for each backup. A development cartridge containing the KART program has also been included in this release.
Many thanks to @collection_nintendo on Instagram for providing the dumps.
Additional thanks to MaxiBash and xp for finding deleted content in the dumps and researching these consoles. Please check out MaxiBash's blog article for a bit more backstory to each DSi.
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Table of contents
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| - Development mode Classroom DSis |
| - KART development cartridge |
| - MangaON development DSi |
| - Altron development DSi |
| - "For dealers and explainers" DSi |
| - Nintendo Zone Box DSi |
These are dumps of 4 different Classroom DSis in development mode. Very little is known about them, though they may have been used to test and develop classroom software. 5 of these are known to exist and were sold on Yahoo Auctions Japan around June of 2023. Those units were labelled as K04 through to K08. @collection_nintendo managed to win 4 of the 5 consoles, only missing K05.
Almost every DSi contains a program called "camera KART". We believe it is sort of augmented reality test, with KART standing for Kyoshitsuji Augmented Reality Test. We haven't completely figured out what it does, and likely never will with just the 3 of us (help us), though we have a rough idea from seeing the program run. The bottom screen has a camera recognition value (shown as recog) which increases when it sees recognizable patterns. It responds well to images of tiles, static, and QR codes, giving a recognition of as high as 40. When the recognition is high enough, it will display a model from NitroFS on the top screen.
This copy of KART was flashed to a TWL development cartrdidge. It appears to be a later build than the NAND versions from before, including features such as swapping cameras (X button), freezing the camera (START, SELECT, or B button), and changing the frame rate (Y button). You can also toggle a blank pixel in the center of the camera with the left shoulder button.
This DSi was used for the development of MangaON, Sunsoft's unreleased service for WiiWare and DSiWare that would have distributed comics and manga. Articles from that time mention Dragon Ball and One Piece manga being offered, as well as others from Shonen Jump later on. The DSi we found would have been on display at Jump Festa 2009 for people to try and learn about MangaOn.
While somewhat hard to see, photos of the event show the DSis in action. In fact, there's a chance this exact unit (or the very edge of it at least) is shown here:
This is a development console owned by Altron. They never made anything for the DSi, so this DSi has nothing of interest on it beyond the usual prototype home menu and settings, and as expected those have already been dumped from other development units.
We don't know anything about this DSi. It has text printed on the back that says 「販売店様 説明員用」, or "For Dealers And Explainers" in english. This DSi may have been used by dealers in stores to explain what a DSi is. This runs a normal retail firmware and so it isn't as interesting as we had hoped.
This is a dump of a Nintendo Zone Box DSi. The NAND appears to be retail.
