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Sega Drops Dreamcast Price To $50
kerskine writes: "Just read this article on CNET that says Sega has just dropped the price of the Dreamcast console to US$49.95. Given past articles on Slashdot on all sorts of fun Dreamcast projects, now's the chance to get one. Why not get two (in case you break one)?" See also this article on getting Linux to run on Dreamcast, and NetBSD is another option to explore. 8ight points out even more interesting Dreamcast information.
on the other hand, you can get your hands on a working super nintendo for under $20, and while we're considering buying unsupported consoles, why not go with one that has an almost limitless library of games available for it.
although I'd be really impressed if anyone managed to get linux running on a snes.
lysergically yours
Why can't they just sell some more of the friggin "broadband adapter" ethernet cards. Does anyone know of a way to hack together one without blowing the money on an overpriced ebay auction?
That link points to part 2 of the article.
You might want to start at the beginning. html)
( http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT7466555948
The absolute best part about this is that you can get two Dreamcasts for $100. Anyone who has ever player VOOT for the Dreamcast knows that there's pretty much no console based multiplayer game that has ever gotten within miles of being as good as this game. With game prices falling, now's the chance to put together a head-to-head system that will still be playable and extremely enjoyable 10 years from now when the console is both dead and obsolete.
Don't believe me? The game is THAT good. I still play Lode Runner, and I'll be playing Virtual On ten years from now.
If guns kill people, then CmdrTaco's keyboard misspells words.
Amazon.com/Toys'R'Us has them for $49.99 US.
the dreamcast can also play games. Lots of them in fact. So much has been made of its usage as an internet appliance, a linux box, etc., but it is also an excellent gaming console. Soul Caliber is still one of the best looking titles on any console IMO. And the price of dreamcast titles continues to drop, making it even eaiser to amass a decent collection of games.
Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)
The Toys'R'Us near me is still selling them for $79.99, so you might want to call ahead and ask.
Good luck finding a BBA though - Sega stopped making them almost as soon as they started. They didn't sell that well due to the limited range of compatible games (it wasn't the same API that the dial-up online games used). They now change hands on EBay for $100 and up ($60 RRP).
Wish it wasn't the case, because talking to the DC via a serial cable is a pain in the ass.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
But the Broadband (Ethernet) adaptor is extremely rare. It costs over $100 on ebay. So your DC node is going to cost you around $150 each.
Better uses include playing games (duh!), internet appliance (comes with 56k modem), and the emulators/mp3 stuff.
Just don't count on networking it for a decent price!
http://homepages.compuserve.de/bITmASTER32/dc/dc-i de.html
With pictures, etc.
While the DC only has one expansion port, the Maple bus (the controller ports) can support up to 2 megabits per second. There are several ways to connect computer to this side of the dreamcast.
So you're saying new dreamcasts are incompatale with the Sega Dreamcast web browser that comes with them, which is on a normal CD-ROM??? I don't think so there chumpie...
Seems like boob.uk is slashdotted right now, but also check out dcemulation for news about emulators for the DC. There's a bunch.
There's also quite a few cool proggies to do other things with your dc. MPEG vid players, streaming mp3 players, and demo disks to check out.
And if you're thinking about running linux on the DC, my man Fivemouse has got 119MB Disk Juggler images you can dl and burn up. And check out his GBA webserver while you're there.
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -Gandhi
One thing that is quite common is for the drive to go bad on a dreamcast. Find an old broken unit and replace the drive with a drive from a new non-cdr bootable unit and the old unit will be able to boot cd-rs again.
Or so I hear
Rats would be more funny if they could fart.
Dreamcasts made before October 2000 can boot from a CDROM. After, cannot. Most on the shelf now cannot. If you can find a Smash Pack Bundle anywhere, those for the most part are good to go. You can sometimes see the "Made On" date through the windown on the back for the serial number.
-------------------------------------------------
It's PCI. All the spccs for all the Dreamcast hardware are described in detail here.
Dude!
:-)
Just do a little investigating and you'll find that Dreamcast has a ton of awesome and addicting titles that most systems don't have.
(Sega makes a good deal of them)
Just to name a few...
Jet Grind Radio
Space Channel 5
Sonic Adventure 1 and 2
Shenmue
Soul Caliber
Virtua Fighter 3tb
Sega GT
Lots of good Capcom titles (Resident Evil, Street Fighters)
All the Sega Sports titles
check out
http://www.dreamcastplanet.com
for lots of good info!
plus for emulators to run on the DC, check out
http://www.dcemulation.com
I Love Dreamcast!
Sega Rules!
I have purchased 4 dreamcast systems, 2 for me and 2 as gifts, all of them have been able to play cdr's and the one i use i've moded to read cdrw's as well.
It includes 1 09/09/99 unit, 2 sportspack units and one unit purchased at bestbuy on latest batch 3 weeks agai.
All play jap imports using the hacked bootdisk by utopia
review on IGN
Username taken, please choose another one.
Don't underestimate the CPU's power. It is a pure RISC-based core, which can't be well compared to x86 speeds. Just like those 500mhz Macs that can run circles around a P3-800mhz most of the time. Also keep in mind that all of the DC's subsystems are designed for fast smooth graphics and stutterless sound, and you don't have to share CPU time with a bloated OS. A good MAME port to the DC would probably run 95% of games at full framerate, which is the most power you can get for 50$ these days.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
64-bit datapath but that doesn't do any real difference since the PS2 will never address more than it's 32 megs of RAM
Huh? Umm, if you are correct about the 64 bit datapath, yes it does make a difference! That means you can move 64 bits of data at once out of/or into RAM. Doesn't matter if you have 640k or 64M, you can still move more data. If that's what you mean by datapath...
"Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
Docrates,
I bought one of the Dreamcasts when the price dropped to $80. I paid about $160 that day for DC stuff. But, I got the DC itself, a keyboard, mouse, extra controller, two "rumble packs", two VMU's, and a few games that I bought solely because of title/pictures/whatever. (some cheesy role playing games), and a 'VGA Box'.
First thing I did when I got it all home was hook it all up to my television (didn't screw with the VGA box thing yet), plugged in a gamepad, keyboard, and mouse. Booted up, put in my ISP settings, and I was online browsing and doing emails. So, as long as you've got a dialup ISP, technically, you're good to go out of the box. You don't need the keyboard to type (you can have some keyboard overlay thing on the screen pop up and use the gamepad to control a cursor around to type --- royal pain in the ass though -- spend the $8 for a keyboard!).
Out of the box net appliance? You betcha! Plus, my kids and I have a blast playing games as well!
--Xan
"Congratulations, Boots. Your robot has become self-aware. You're a daddy now." -- Dr. Rho Bowman
I used to work at Sega (and since the information is widely available on the net now, I don't think that there's any harm in posting it here, despite the little contract I signed with them when I got laid off).
It's not so much the board as it is the BootROM in the Dreamcast.
A little history here (as recounted to me by a few Sega of Japan people)... Sega of Japan (SOJ) originally intended the Dreamcast to run off of GD-ROMs only, but the problem is that GD-ROM discs cost $13 (at least, that's what the blank ones we sold to game developers cost, I have no idea what the mass production expense is). The problem is that Sega then decided that they wanted to distribute free demo discs, and the cost of GD's for this purposes was astronomical. So, they came up with this MIL-CD format that would also boot on a Dreamcast, a regular CD (in media) but had a special signature that the BootROM checked for.
SOJ thought that their little secret was safe (through security by obscurity), until somebody discovered it. I don't have any concrete facts on who did, the rumor that I heard is that the Bleem team (who are very intelligent people, BTW) had a MIL-CD imported from Japan and cracked it that way . Of course, at this time, the GameShark was starting to exploit the MIL-CD format. Then the cracking groups started exploiting it (presumably by looking at GameShark).
At this point, Sega of Japan didn't really care, but Sega of America (SOA) was mightily pissed - our third-party developers were not impressed. There was some internal experimentation on copy-protection/anti-cracking schemes (which I will NOT discuss), and we also lobbied SOJ to put out a new BootROM (v2.0?) that did not allow for booting from CD's. Once they had used their depleted stock of previous (1.1 I believe) BootROM's, then they started using the new chips.
The problem is that there were many hardware revisions of the Dreamcast, so you can't necessarily guarantee by a date (or version number) whether your DC will boot CD's or not.
Of course, there is some legality regarding using the MIL-CD format - Sega intentionally put in some Sega trademarks in the BootROM and the MIL-CD format, so that the only way to have them boot is to contain that Sega text. Thus, in theory, you are subjecting yourself to trademark infringement cases (they did this as a result of Sega v. Accolade, way back when).
-- Joe
Since it's running on a CD, you don't have to worry about someone modifying files on it if they manage to hack
Or, you could buy any one of a number of solid-state firewall routers that periodically sell for less than $50 and run on less than 5watts. (Mine is an SMC that cost $49 a few months ago, is the size of a small cigar box, and is also a printe server and DHCP server.)
e.g., www.smc.com
Perhaps the sega box is fun for playing games and experimenting, but there are more practical solutions for firewalls today.
--- -- - -
Give me LIBERTY, or give me a check.
DC manufactured Sept 2000 or before can run anything, and are the ones you want to get.
Some Oct 2000 and all Dec 2000 and later do not boot using the audio+data format. This is the format that most pirated games and emulator disks use. There is an alternative burn method to get the later manufactured ones to boot CDs, www.dccopyworld.com and www.isonews.com and www.dcemulation.com has more info on that.
Only VERY few DCs were manufactured that do NOT boot from CDs at all. They were only released in Japan, and were generally "special" DCs, like the Sakuren Taisen (sp?) special edition DC.
BleemDC works on all US DCs, so other CDs should also.
Actually, all of the Sega ones are pretty much being ported cross platform. The only ones that I know of that have some exclusivity (for a limited time) are Sonic (GameCube, funny how the 2 most recongizable brand characters are appearing on the same platform) and Shenmue 2 (X-Box). Sega seems to be taking their cross-platform strategy seriously and porting most of their games across the board. Some games that are being ported to Nintendo, PS2, and X-Box (more than one platform) include Soul Caliber, Virtua Fighter, Sega GT, and Super Monkey Ball. Capcom titles may be heading over to GameCube more than X-Box (considering what's happening to RE series). Hopefully, Sega will remain a strong neutral player so that they don't upset anyone anymore (considering Sega fans are loyally divided now).
From amazon anyway, there is no buy button and they don't have any in stock. Adding it to one's wish list gives " This item is currently unavailable. "
I have been looking around for a good joystick for the Dreamcast, and the one from Agetec pointed to in the above amazon link seems to be the best from what I hear. The problem is that Agetec has stopped producing them and they are almost as rare to find and get as Kryptonite. I have tried looking around a few months back in stores that Agetec listed and could not find one. There are places online that I can get them which is also rare, but I don't really trust them and one store would not take my credit card order for some unknown reason.
Good luck finding a decent arcade stick. Besides this one and the one by interact which is also hard to find, all the others I have seen are cheap pieces of junk.
For those interested you can see both joysticks here)
You don't need 2 ethernet ports for that, an IP alias and the correct routing can work just as good in most cases. $50 linux firewall, now that's not a bad deal!
What have you got to lose?
Licensing fees. Sega may have discontinued the Dreamcast as hardware, but the platform is still very much alive. New games are still coming out for the DC because Sega is still licensing out to game developers.
Rumors also pointed to a Dreamcast PCI card and/or set-top-box that had recording features as well as Dreamcast Features. (RUMORS. Don't take this as fact!)
You're better off developing games under Linux and porting them to LinuxDC.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Yeah they can, get your facts straight. Those were only released in Japan and in small quantities of certain types of DC: Hello Kitty and one I can't remember, I have yet to run across a US DC that can't boot a CDR.
I'm the big fish in the big pond bitch.
Actually, Sega stopped the manufacture of their "broadband adaptors" (BBAs) after just a few months on sale, and even then you had to purchase it directly from Sega.
This limited supply, coupled with a high demand from gamers who want one for netplay (QIIIA, UT, and a precious few other games support the BBA), means the average going price for a BBA is far more than the DC box itself. A quick scan of eBay shows only one currently available, at a starting bid of $120 (!).
So the cost of two of these puppies, and one DC box, would set you back far more than an Ethersys router, which is an all-around better option in any case.
In addition, the DC has only one modem/BBA port; getting two to work with it would be nontrivial.
Bob
Science, like Nature, must also be tamed, with a view turned towards its preservation.
Buy one. Even though almost no new games are coming out for it, the games that are currently out are some of the best. And since they're only 20-40 dollars each, you can buy a whole lot. If you're getting a Dreamcast, I'd recommend: Soul Calibur, Sonic Adventure 1 and 2, Jet Grind Radio, Shenmue, Crazy Taxi (original), Virtua Tennis (or Tennis 2K2, i suppose), and Phantasy Star Online (they're both good). Believe me, you won't regret it. Even if you can't run Linux on it...
6.1. Newer Non-CDR DCs and workaround Thanks to DJ Motion from isonews, jc, OEM, and Xeal on dcwarez.
The new DCs have their BIOS programmed to prevent booting CD(R)s which have audio (audio boot data in this case) before the game data (formally known as the MIL-CD format). Not nice. Especially considering nearly all previous games - including ECHELON rips - work like this. When buying a Dreamcast, look for Dreamcast units manufactured BEFORE November 2000. There have been some units manufactured in Nov. 2000 with the new BIOS revision that will not work with CDR's. Note that retail box type (regular or Smash Pack) does not matter, only the manufacture date of the unit, which should be visible through a small window on the Dreamcast retail box. Also identified as not working with CDR's are the Sakura Taisen and Hello Kitty special edition Dreamcasts available in Japan.
So it looks like data only CDRs should work, just not audio _before_ data.
lnical
Hmm.. didn't know that. In comparison, the SH4 (SH7750) has 16 32-bit General Purpose Registers (GPR). Got the info from the hardware manual for the SH7750 off of Hitachi's site (pg 42). General purpose registers allow programmers to put info into a quick safe place that is near by. The GPRs aren't always necessary, but sometimes are useful for storing results of operations like add, mul, div, comparisons, etc.. More registers are useful because if you are out of general purpose registers then the programmers (or more likely compiler toolsets) other alternative is to use the stack which is stored in on chip memory if it can fit (~5ns), or off chip memory (at least 30-50ns penalty with external bus), or worst of all virtual memory (10,000ns not sure, but dont think ever. don't write compilers so not sure). However, that being said there are always tradeoffs and GPRs are not the only way to say one proc is better than another. Yes, more than four is better, but 16 isn't necessarily the end all solution. There are definitely many other architecture points to evaluate as well. These numbers are rough estimates so corrrect at will.
JOhn
Campaign for Liberty
Unfortunatly, the price drop isn't going to be passed on to Australia.
Ozisoft, the Aussie distributer for Sega, has said that their supplies have dried up, and Sega won't be sending any more our way.
Hmm. Luckily enough, I already own one!