• My Sega Dreamcast

I bought a Dreamcast during a Electronics Boutique closeout one fateful night circa Winter '04. I modded it to provide a VGA port and have since been investigating F/LOSS OS installations and ethernet connectivity.

2288385015 1231524574

"A Dreamcast image will never be self-booting if you burn in ISO format. Why? Because you can't selfboot from a single session disc. The reason why everyone used cdi is because, at the time people were developing extensively, DiscJuggler's cdi format was particularly good at multisession images. " -- Installing Xubuntu and useing it to burn Dreamcast games - Page 2 - Ubuntu Forums

• Dreamcast Linux Distribution

  • newest is ftp://ftp.m17n.org/pub/super-h/dreamcast/dreamcast-linux-010605.tar.bz2

• gavare.se: GXemul - Documentation (0.4.6.2) has link to good linux livecd howto

• not enough horses to do native compilation?

• The great thing about FLASH memory is that even if the battery goes dead in the VMS unit, the contents of the memory does not get erased! pics

• broadband dreamcast, Accessories, Games items on eBay.com broadband adapters going for $200

• http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=38719 instructions for modem ppp link w/ netbsd

• vs cable doesnt have +3.3v

  • neo geo color link cable does but it's inside the box

  • http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1786&sid=46a07fc852c9376b41ac35d5872bc058

  • http://f17.aaa.livedoor.jp/~takotako/g2bus.php pins 17-19 on the G2 bus provide +3.3v

• http://dreamcast.onlineconsoles.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=6876&sid=7952a665e69504abed77afc6a51a686b "The closest anyone has ever been to implementing a "patch" of sorts was with Virtual On, but it didn't access any real in-game source. It was basically run as a shell utility and would catch packets going to the VS cable serial port and then route them to the DC's BBA / modem through a homebrew network stack. "

Games to try

• Sega Dreamcast Recommended Games - Underground Gamer

Gripes

• See battery section
• See frownies

Blog post planning

• http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=1743 pretty complete history

• http://cryptome.org/dc-coder.htm DMCA! :[

• lxdream.org - News

• Some of the best homebrewers use non-*nix
• list

  • spam & (NSFW) port-dreamcast: Dreamcast gfx subsystem question

• very active period: Index of port-dreamcast for December, 2001

• "your os options"
• bitrot (grep ff hist for "wayback")

  • LKML: "Adrian McMenamin": [PATCH Dreamcast AICA sound driver G2 bus handling] to the contrary

  • "I'm going to stop hosting the very old dreamcast-world and kernel tarballs I've had up for ages. They've been supplanted by the NetBSD official releases"

  • BOOB! - Developer Documents

• dreamcast

• shout outs to those people who paved a new road for free software:

  • For a little while in 2002 I was perhaps the most active Dreamcast linux kernel hacker - writing a device driver or two and even a filesystem for the VMU device grim

  • Rui Paulo

NewOS

• "I'm deep in a PPC port right now so I *am* thinking about non x86 ports and will probably spend the time getting the SH-4 port to work again. As far as the usefulness of running it on a DC, that's up to the user to decide. I certainly don't find it very useful myself." -- SourceForge.net:

Linux

• BOOTING-HOWTO

• "This is the proper place, the LinuxDC work was merged into LinuxSH a number of years ago" -- Re: Question about 2.6 dreamcast support

• setterm -t linux -powersave off # didnt DTRT. tried w/ powerdown 0' and -blank 0`

  • i think the -blank did it

• `cat /dev/urandom | hexdump -C'

  • od -An -w80 -h /dev/urandom | tr -d ' '

NetBSD

• vmdk might be necessary w/ kvm

• sudo kvm -hda /media/audio_etc_370gig/virtual_machines/netbsd_aluminum.qcow2 -cdrom /media/audio_etc_370gig/torrents_nu/warez_done/i386pkg.iso -no-acpi -boot c

• port-dreamcast: Updated boot(8) man page

• NetBSD on 8M CF + 8M RAM

• As the Dreamcast port is binary compatible to other sh-based ports, you can also use snapshots from these projects, such as the NetBSD/hpcsh port, located at ftp://ftp.NetBSD.org/pub/NetBSD/arch/hpcsh/snapshot/. This doesn't only apply to snapshots of the base system, but also of precompiled binary packages.

• Tools for creating NetBSD/dreamcast live CD (tarball)

• man4.dreamcast

• For a read-only filesystem, use this (very old) DiscJuggler image. For a read/write filesystem, use Josh Tolbert's kernel (mirror). This will involve netbooting your system, and will give you a read/write filesystem.

  • Index of port-dreamcast for November, 2001

  • 5.8MB. was only about to download from archive.org w/ firefox

  • "Andy R was even kind enough to forward along a copy of that DiscJuggler image, which I've put up at http://www.kirknet.net/netbsd.cdi. " -- port-dreamcast: Updated boot(8) man page

• http://ftp.netbsd.org/pub/NetBSD/NetBSD-4.0/iso/dreamcastcd-4.0.iso ?

  • maybe a result of port-dreamcast: Re: Availabilty of NetBSD/dreamcast 3.0_BETA LiveCD

• port-dreamcast: Re: Dreamcast coders cable booting over SLIP?

• simple example on how to mmap the framebuffer

  • longish thread

• port-dreamcast: binary packages for the dreamcast

• port-dreamcast: Re: preposterous clock chip time

• port-dreamcast: New attempt at building a NetBSD Dreamcast kernel

• port-dreamcast: maple driver

• port-dreamcast: Various Dreamcast offers seen this weekend; Q's about DC noise levels

• port-dreamcast: SLIP?

• "As far as I can tell (and I have read through the *whole* archive), the question has been asked several times, but never answered very fully. I see that there was a discussion of SLIP and serial device config problems in March of this year." -- port-dreamcast: Re: Coder's Cable and serial connections

Dealing with limited RAM

• port-dreamcast: Re: bootable root CD... size estimate

  • swap over NFS is really, really slow

Using video RAM

• DCS

• "I'm not sure I fully understand the question, but the microcode in the PVR isn't replacable to my knowledge. Meaning, you input pre-transformed 3D polygon data and textures, and you get out framebuffers of rendered scenes. I don't know of any other way to use it." - Dan Potter

• BOOB! - Developer Documents

  • 0xa5000000 8 Mbytes Video RAM

    • Dreamcast Programming - Memory Map

  • As triangles are sent to it, the Dreamcast hardware 3-D chip does not render the triangles scan line by scan line. Instead, it stores the triangles in video memory as they are sent.

  • "video register"

Using audio RAM

• with 2MB of RAM for wave table synthesis

Supported Peripherals

• Builtin serial port (scif)

  • port-dreamcast: Re: sci & scif serial drivers sci unused. synchronous serial interface w/ HW FIFO

• PowerVR video controller (text and Xserver) (pvr0)
• SEGA Broadband Adapter (HIT-0400) (rtk)
• SEGA LAN Adapter (HIT-0300) (mbe)
• Maple bus keyboard (mkbd)
• Maple bus mouse (mms)
• Maple bus memory card (mmem)
• Maple bus LCD (mlcd)
• GD-ROM drive (gdrom)
• AICA sound system (aica)
• grep makedev(8)

• GENERIC

  • RTC
  • ramdisk

Providing network access to the DC

• about Dreamcast G2 bus extension port pinout

• ppp

• PPP over NetBSD

• sci on NetBSD on DC <-> ??? <-> ??? on Linux on PC

  • gumstix.com - way small computing $109 + gumstix.com - way small computing $79 (needs 5v)

  • Dr Robot Inc. $400

  • gumstix.com - way small computing $160 as of 2008-01-23. 400mhz 64MB/16MB. BT

• See "rabbit" section below

Reference

• NetBSD/dreamcast Frequently Asked Questions

Community

• Dreamcast Online - View Forum - Dreamcast Lounge

VGA mod

• Dreamcast VGA mod

Killing the fan

• 5v .02a

• mavrinac.com: Dreamcast Dissection

• Dreamcast Impressions! japanese model had heat pipes?

• The temperature sensor can be stopped from the heat sink of the video chip with the tape by the pipe. It seems that the temperature is monitored by this.

• a thermal cut-out switch will immediately shut down the system and prevent any permanent damage should the fan or cooling system ever fail. lots of hype and some good tech specs

• This is a 5V 80mA fan, connected to the controller port board (4) by a 3-pin power connector. The power leads can be extended fairly easily, or the fan can be omitted or replaced.

Applications

• Ethernet via PPP to Rabbit

• PPP/Ethernet -> composite out/line-level audio out

  • Unfortunately there's not enough speed to decode mp3

• 2) Multi-system emulator. SVGAlib emulators could easily be ported, once we have a simple framebuffer device.

Cross-compiling w/ linux

• Stalin's DCDev

T2

• /T2 Linux

Avoiding the "set date/time" screen with a keyboard

• need to hit "RRR[...]A(?)"

• How to fix DC that cant keep time

• Sanyo Rechargeable Lithium Coin Cells with Pins $5 + $10 shipping

• BBM Battery - Detail $7 as of 2008-01-21

  • "handling charge of $10.00 will apply for orders under $20.00"

• Build A Simple Rechargeable CMOS Battery for pc

• rechargeable cr2032

• Dreamcast Help - View topic - How can I replace battery heat hurtz. see consolevision link below

• Devcast - Dreamcast Hardware - Dreamcast Mods replace batt w/ AAs

• My DC freezes at the Set Date/Time Screen - CDROM-Guide forums info

  • Dreamcast Help [the offical idea for n00bs]

• Is this the best forum to ask Dreamcast break/fix advice? - Neo-Geo Forums no solution

Using a Rabbit Semiconductor 3720 as a ethernet interface

        b3              GND             Yellow          2       
        b4              RX2             Green           5       
        b5              TX2             Grey            6       
        b6              RTS             Violet          7       
        b7              CTS             White           8       
        b8              ?               Blue            3       
        b10             3.3V            Orange          1       
        Shield          Shield          Shield          4       

• via Paul's USB Coder's Cable HOWTO

  • PPProvider is an alternative.

  • Not at archive.org as of 2008-12-02

    • DCS - Main / USBCodingCable browse ?

        PC Serial, 9 Pins, Male                 Dreamcast Serial, 10 pins, female
        
        1 2 3 4 5                               1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10    
         6 7 8 9                                (viewing from the back)

        1 - Carrier Detect                      1 - +5v
        2 - RXD                                 2 - ?
        3 - TXD                                 3 - Gnd
        4 - DTR                                 4 - RXD
        5 - Gnd                                 5 - TXD
        6 - DSR                                 6 - RTS
        7 - RTS                                 7 - CTS
        8 - CTS                                 8 - ?
        9 - RI                                  9 - ?
                                                10- +3.3v

• via http://www.harmlesslion.com/text/DreamcastCable.htm

• The NetBSD Networks FAQ

• or use gumstix w/ usb port w/ ethernet dongle

• netbsd-help: Re: Configuring PPP nice informal tutorial

• ppp is built into the netbsd kernel

• The following drivers implement flow control but either do not support line status callbacks, or do not report CD changes: SH4 SCIF

• pppd /dev/scif0 115200 noauth local defaultroute

• "the Dreamcast serial port uses CMOS (3.3V) voltage levels"

• "4 shared high-speed, 3.3 V CMOS-compatible ports: all 4 are configurable as asynchronous serial ports; 3 are configurable as a clocked serial port (SPI) and 1 is configurable as an HDLC serial port; option for second HDLC serial port at the expense of 2 clocked serial ports (SPI)"

• Dynamic C Module PPP Driver

• Some (ppp) theory

• Multiple interfaces ( IF_ETH0 & IF_PPP2) - Rabbit-Semi - EmbeddedRelated.com ppp

• PPP Serial connection locks up on incorrect baud rate. - Rabbit-Semi - EmbeddedRelated.com corner case ppp bug

• Rabbit Semiconductor - Tech Support - Downloads - PPP Module for Dynamic C v.8 payware

Other HW

• the NSLU2 also has an onboard serial port which uses TTL levels

Using a VMU as persistent storage

• http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=115378&highlight=dreamcast+cable%22 1k-10k write lifetime

• NetBSD - encrypted filesystem with cfs - Unixboard.de Wiki

• vmuscript

• ITOH Yasufumi has rewritten Maple bus driver and has added support for memory card

  • mmemcard.c

• Persistent configuration on the VMU

LOLz

• My Run-in with the DMCA ordered cable from lik-sang

Misc

• NetBSD pvr0 is 640x480 16bpp VGA RGB

  • http://netbsd.gw.com/cgi-bin/man-cgi?vga++NetBSD-current

• QNX? (see existing page)

Reference

• Dreamcast Technical Pages - Serial Port pinout

• Gmane -- Mail To News And Back Again

• Dreamcast - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Index of port-dreamcast need to copy locally? See Bounties and Lazyweb Requests

• Dreamcast Laser Calibration Trick

• Hitmen - Building a Win32 hosted sh4-crosscompiler using GCC

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Category - Hardware Projects