Help identifying possible power glove prototype part

[bunjamins]

I am excited about this site and forum, I've been collecting since i got my NES for christmas 87, and i have a few things in my collection that I've never been able to identify from the NES era, 15 years ago i made some forum posts on various game forums but I still haven't been able to identify this one.  I bought this from a thrift shop in my home town in the late 90's as I was buying up every nintendo cart they had come in, at $.50 each back then.  It caught my eye because it had a female NES controller port, and a parallel port, which I was aware of and as someone that had just gotten into playing games on Nesticle, I thought this could be a way to use my controller on the PC. 

I tried the PC thing, and failed, hooking up controllers to a parallel port on a 486 was not straight forward or doable at all without a driver usually provided on a floppy by the controller manufacturer.  anyway, it got boxed up.  every 5 or 10 years as i dig through my collection I try and find out info.

The interesting part, it looks like a generic project box, it has Abrams/Gentile Entertainment stickers A-G-E slapped on either side of that project box, then it has 3 cables coming out: Parallel, NES female Controller, and AC 120-AC 10.5 power converter brick..  The brick is branded "Child Guidance, Show 'N Tell Phono Viewer" which was a toy from the 60's to 80's but had no nes port or parallel port interface.  I can only assume this brick was just used from the parts bin to power this device. 

The AGE stickers on the device say copyright 1988 AGE, but I know that's only indicative that this was made in 1988 or after. 

At this point I assume only someone that worked at Abrams Gentile will know what this is, but any help i can get in identifying this would be appreciated.

The images I initially attached are huge, it screws with the forum formatting, here's the album link in imgur: https://imgur.com/a/VGljvi3

[tripredacus]

Take a look at the Power Glove section in this:
https://www.seanclark.me.uk/uploads/sega-3d-glasses-to-pc-interface.pdf

At page 7. You can test the connections on that AGE device with a volt meter to see if you see power on the expected pins as shown in that PDF. If so, then this device may just be similar to the one described in the Byte magazine.

[bunjamins]

I think you're right, it's the same type of device mentioned there, but this one looks like it was from AGE, from before the power glove was released, but with a female NES plug.  Maybe AGE sold this publicly to allow people to use the powerglove on pc? the only reason i mentioned possible prototype involvement, is the 1988 copyright sticker, and the inclusion of a power supply from the parts bin.  I didn't aquire this until around 1999, so it's possible someone else changed the powersupply out.  I haven't unscrewed the case yet, but inspecting the soldier joints of the power supply wire to the pcb might identify that as non-original.

I'll test the pins with my multimeter when i get home against the schematic in the doc you posted.

[sworddude]

it's not to uncommon for games or consoles to use parts that are older than when they get released

If I where to open a ton of nintendo or sega games. a ton of boards are 1 to 3 + years older than when the game was actually released

They might use older parts to make them games and consoles. 1988 means was only 1 year before release. that part of the tech could have been made in 1988 could be pretty normal.

[bunjamins]

wow, i got to have your 1337 post as a reply. lol

I agree, i mentioned that in my post, it could have been made anytime 1988 or after, i'd say it's unlikely AGE printed those labels much before 1988.  And the part coming from another toy i didn't see as odd either, just unlikely that they released it as a commercial product with that ancient branded power supply with it, unless it was custom or really small run production.