The Marketing Sample TI-83+SE VSC finally arrived today, it doesn't have a date code or a serial number since its pre-mass production. It has boot code 1.00 and was definitely assembled somewhere between the 4th week of February 2001 and June 2001.
The MB, LCD and VSC board codes are earlier than the ones on the previously oldest known TI-83+SE VSCs, but the main components are the same.
pre-A mass production:
- MB: 9TA867MB-42F
- LCD: 9867LVB-31C
- VSC: unknown
Marketing Sample:
- MB: 9867MB-40D
- LCD: 9867LVB-30B
- VSC: 9867VISC-40D
Interestingly, the Fujitsu 29LV160 Flash-ROM chip is rotated over the RAM chip like on the TI-83+ from that period instead of being side by side like on other TI-83+SE VSCs.
There are also a bunch of small differences in the layout of the board and there are a handful of unpopulated pads which were removed in later board revisions (test points, although I wouldn't expect that there would be any hardware testing going on at that point, so it is probably the same board design as the earlier prototypes, but there obviously wouldn't be a need for all the test points in marketing samples).
Although there is no factory id, if there were one, it would be "I" (no surprises there since every single documented TI-83+SE VSC has been made there) because it says it was "MADE IN TAIWAN", and the only factory that produces TIs in Taiwan is Inventec.