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Dreamcast Reading An IDE Hard Drive
evilpaul13 writes: "Somebody got an IDE Harddrive hooked up to his Dreamcast! He plans to build a new case for it as a later project. Maybe this will encourage new Linux for Dreamcast work with the greater possibilities it presents for a small SH6 based web server?" This is still a work in progress -- but it's encouraging, especially given the current price of Dreamcast consoles.
Given the relative slowness of the dreamcast, even at less than a $100 buck it still can't compete with a PC. You can easily put together a Duron sytem for around the same cost and have a far more useful Linux box. Being able to run binaries and not recomiling to run on the dreamcast will save a boatload of time in the long run too.
A friend of mine was / is looking to purchase a Dreamcast, but none of the large retailers carry them any more. Unless you can get one off of E-Bay or a Pawn Shop, you will probably have great difficulty finding any these days.
END COMMUNICATION
I'm not as interested in running linux from a dreamcast but this would be rather handy if you could play games from the hard drive. I'd probably play with my dreamcast more often if the damn games loaded quicker.
i heard something about someone putting linux on an xbox and running it on that. where can i find information?
Agreed, they're no where to be found on places such as Amazon.com or EBworld.com (or Gamestop.com), which are the big three retailers AFAIK. Smaller online specialty shops may still have them, but I imagine they're asking more than retail given the shortages these days.
All I know about Bush is I had a good job when Clinton was president.
...but getting it to work on an X-Box would be even more so!
:)
But seriously, I'm constantly amazed by the ideas people have of devices to run Linux on -- perhaps more so than the actual hacking required to do it.
Check out this Linux on a toaster... Crazy teenagers!
Why anyone would really consider this "promising". Cool, yes. Geeky, yes. But come on, for the price of the hardware, you can buy a two or three generations old real machine on ebay and have a MUCH more funcitonal webserver without any of the do-it-yourself hassle. Can you really see someone going out and buying up a whole slew of dreamcasts and hard drives to build out a cheap server farm?
It uses a Hitachi SH4, not SH6, iirc. Just splitting hairs :).
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Phil
SuSE 7 ;)
RedHat 7
Mandrake 8
SOURCE RPM
and SOURCE TARBALL
PowerVR has just made the Dreamcast into an aspiring platform for Linux gaming! Good graphics, 128 bit SuperH CPU, good BUS, affordable(less than $100 at retail, cheaper used), and now a harddrive... shame on them ;)
Now THIS will solve my library of VMU's problem.
- 1 el cheapo Dreamcast for your local walmart with dreamcast linux installed
- 1 inexpensive little TV (you've probably got one in your garage)
- 1 spare ide drive -- I've got one sitting on my desk
- Plywood and paint
And as a bonus, you can play Sonic the Hedgehog on it!Websurfing done right! StumbleUpon
Someone else made it, a team of college students I believe. They made an interface 4 it. now that the dc is rather dead and its cpu dated it doesnt much matter. Well it might to those linux nuts that want to run linux on everything from a wrist watch to a cash register
This is cool. :)
If we incorporate the DC Navi with Lain OS, then we will have a full NAVI styled DC NAVI
Saying your OS is the best because more people use it is like saying MacDonalds make the best food
There's a store just up the road called GameStop. It's a part of Barnes and Noble, so I assume you can find GameStops pretty much anywhere you can find a Barnes and Noble. Anyway, they sell used consoles, including Dreamcasts. I bought my N64 there about a year ago for only about $50, and it's worked wonderfully since then. Good quality, low prices. Check them out.
It has beend done, here is a url:u can even get an ISO for the modified RedHat/eCos there.
http://www.m17n.org/linux-sh/dreamcast/
Yo
It supports the video card (unaccelrated framebuffer, maybe improved by now), and the BBA (if you are lucky enough to have one). You *could* make it into a web server through nfs, or static on CD, but see no good reason. Doesn't support the sound though.
Personally, If I had a BBA and linux supported the sound, it could make a convenient MP3 jukebox with neato visualizations, or even an MPG player. You can get software to play MPG and MP# from CD already, but over NFS would be so much more convenient... Home theater applications, that could be useful, since it's form factor is so nice. Linux on the XBox would be a truly great Home Theater thing (hard drive and ethernet built in). Hell, any general purpose OS on the XBox would make the box more attractive, the games sure as hell don't excite me.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
bITmASTER32 made an IDE interface and Kiyoshi Ikehara built released a driver for NetBSD a long time ago. What this guy did was nothing special. They have been Lan booting NetBSD on a dreamcast and using the HDD (albeit slow, 800k/sec) for a while now.
Of course, you can only have one interface connected at a time, BBA or Modem.... No HD needed for a NAT box (you would shoot the low power req right there). Get a cheap cable/dsl "router". This interface may even take up the BBA slot, so no network with this. To make Dreamcast a Good NAT box, you would need an adapter with two Ethernet ports and a bit of nvram (if you want to have any sort of persistant, yet flexible rules..)
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Check out the IPAQ storage brick. It didn't take much hardware hacking though.
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Hit up a Babbage's or FunCoLand (same parent company). Babbage's sells mostly new stuff, but has some used/refurbed DC stuff, and FunCoLand is primarily a used game/console store. The one near me has about a half-dozen used DCs for sale. I even got a DC keyboard at FunCoLand for $10, new in the box. The Electronics Boutiques around here seem to be dropping the DC merchandise and just selling off the remainder, though, and the local Wal*Marts have stopped carrying it completely.
This is not a Fugazi
Maybe this will encourage new Linux for Dreamcast work with the greater possibilities it presents for a small SH6 based web server?
The Dreamcast is SH4-based, not SH6. The SH5 chip is just about ready to be released.
Gives a whole new meaning to embedded operating system, eh? ;)
Linux is a marvelous OS but it doesn't need to run on EVERYTHING.
Sega Master System - Z80 cpu. no idea of mhz
Sega Genesis - MC68000 cpu, z80 cpu for sound
Sega 32x - SH2 cpu, able to utilize 68k as coprocessor
Sega Saturn - Dual Hitachi SH3's, 68k for sound
Sega Dreamcast - SH4 cpu, (SH3 for sound? heh)
Anyone have any idea what the Game Gear used? I'm guessing z80, though it might have been others.
...for running Linux off of a HDD hooked up to a dreamcast, although the PS2 serves the purpose a little better for me (just based on its shape and its PC-like CD tray): car "PC" systems! Think about it, a console is generally cheaper than a PC, has a smaller profile, doesn't generate as much heat, and has more "out of the box" uses (A PS2 placed in a car is already capable of playing games, DVDs, AND CDs - and with Linux running on it could probably very easy serve as an mp3 player).
A Dreamcast might not be as useful for that specific purpose, but the moral is don't immediatly assume any Linux project done "just for the hell of it" has no practical use. Anyone with the creativity and skill to get Linux running on unusual hardware (and in this case modify the hardware itself) can definetly come up with a good use for it.
If you need to interpret my post, then you don't get it.
This has been done before, it's actually been done a lot better before.
I apologize for not being able to find the URL. For some reason, dreamcast hackers don't link to eachother much at all, so the info is hard to find with google. Somewhere around here, I have a PDF with a schematic.
About a year and a half ago, someone released an unfinished schematic for a board that connects where the modem or BBA connects and has an onboard IDE controller and an ISA slot. The website for it also had pictures of an improved design with a notebook ide connector and mounting hardware, and a pcmcia slot instead of an ISA slot. All this hardware being supported under netbsd, with source provided.
the creator / author said on the page that the complete design was unfinished but very close to finished. It was uncertian whether he was planning on printing and selling boards, or even telling anyone else how to do it.
This is just like television, only you can see much further.
I've Googled and Googled, but have yet to find any resources covering homebrew on the Game Cube. It uses a modded IBM G3 and some interesting SRAM-ish memory. I'd be nice if a resource like Marcus Comstedt's existed. So far the closest I can find are photos of the guts, and some marketing from Metrowerks.
You can pick one up with very little effort from Gamestop.com ( http://www.gamestop.com/) They have several deals on used systems with 1 or more games starting around $69. As you mention - ebay works well too. If you're gonna hack it anyway, why buy new?
It runs on pretty much everything, probably more stable than Linux too (it has been for me on x86 but not as much fun stuff)
http://www.netbsd.org/Ports/dreamcast
I take it you know that because you've played all the popular Dreamcast games, and found them worthless? Or is it possible that you're making broad comments about a system that you actually don't know much about? Just curious.
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Dreamcast Linux distro isn't a success yet from what we've used (on the DC we bought specifically). It's certainly got potential. Just a shame about the broadband adapter drought.
I'd really prefer the "I made X into Y" articles were in their own category, rather than hardware. There's enough of them to warrant a category, and I suspect I'm not the only person who has no interest in them but still wants to read legitimate hardware news.
You would see that he EXPLICITLY states where he got the info he needed to do it.
My server
Being a software pirate, I'd love to see this used to store games.. wouldn't it be cool to have a 100GB drive hooked up to your Dreamcast and to be able to load games off the HD? Probably tough to do since I'm sure games read the CD directly.. but it'd be cool. Like those N64 copiers that read games off zip disk.
I've been following the scene for quite awhile. Was hop in #dcemu 6 months or so, when it wasnt busy. Went through the big John Henderson fiasco.
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There is alot the DC offers, that nobody realizes. Do you know its the only cheap $50 console, that has accelerated 3d rendering? in free, open source libraries (KOS 1.1.7).
Rocket Racer beta2 is a wipeout-style game, no AI or Multiplayer till beta 3, but the techdemo of it kicks ass (4 cars, 2 tracks, time trials only).
DCShooter (beta that is out is old, wait for next release).. loads Q2 levels. Its a homebrew multiplayer (1-4) shooting game. Will soon be goldeneye-style.
DCAsteroids and DCFighting are both 3d, but are on backburner for the shooting game at the moment.
Look at fucking DcDivx!! Made by team Project Mayo themselves! (Divx 3,4,5 support, AVI, MP3 - Disc Swap Support) Its only beta 3, and is an -excellent- movie player.
There are outstanding emulators too.
NES : NesterDC 6.0
SNES: DreamSNES 0.9.7
GB : DCGNUboy 1.0.3-0.4
Genesis : DCGen 0.34b
Sega Master System/ Game Gear : Smeg 0.84
Just to name a few.
The harddrive is only a smaller mod that makes up the DC as a whole. Look at everything, and it kicks the crap out of any PS2 or Xbox...
Go ahead, play a super nintendo game on the Xbox.
Play a DivX movie on your PS2.
http://www.dcemulation.com/
http://www.dcvison
http://www.boob.co.uk
http://www.angryburrito.com/ The best, completely unfinished software review site ever.
My comments are more about it's great propganda push which ripped the rug out from under the feet of all it's customers. It's was a good attempt at a next generation system. However it turned out ot be lacking in several areas. No to mention the PS2 ripped it apart.
"Can't sleep. Clowns will eat me"
Umm... ok....
Go... dreamcast?
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256kb nvram at 0x00200000
and i suspect that using this you also get the isa port which bitmaster originally intended, so get an isa nic and drop it in.
The most obvious thing would be not only Linux on DC, but the other applications.
Imagine your cool Dreamcast MP3 player with no disc swapping because the MP3's are on the drive. It sucks now, even though I have all my MP3's on CD because I must swap and look for the CD I want to play.
Imagine the cool shit - rip CD's to the drive and you've got a cheap unit similar to the HP or the others.
I'm excited! I loved the Dreamcast - IMHO the coolest console to come out in a long time. For some reason I scoff at the new ones because my love runs so deep. Fsck Xbox, PS2 and GC!
Dreamcast I Love You! - Please Don't Die
I'm lame, mod me as such
Get your Unix fortune now!
All Dreamcasts can read CDRs. The ones made after Oct. 2000 just refuse to boot the most popular format (in terms of CD sessions) for burned Dreamcast games. You can use another format that works fine on later-manufactured Dreamcasts. See the dreamcast articles at for more details.
I don't know if this is an elaborate "Beowulf" troll or what. Your post makes no sense. The GPU on an XBox is not useful for anything other than graphics. Making a cluster of these things is a bad idea.
It seems to me the point of using them would be to use a LOT of them. In which case it would make sense (to me) to put a broadband adapter in it and have a netboot server for them. That way you can harness their cheap processing power and don't have to worry about difficult hardware manipulation to add a hard drive.
~LoudMusic
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
As I Dreamcast lover, I LOVE this kind of stuff. "Why do this? You can buy a cheap PC and blah blah" ... that isn't the point. The point is that people who love the DC are finding all of these great other uses for it. The Dreamcast is still a beautiful system, and is very versitile in what it can do. The bigger the underground DC scene becomes, the happier I am. I remember back when VMU animations were just becoming possible, and how fun that kind of stuff was. I made two Japanese flash card programs for the VMU through the simple animation routines. What was the point? Just because I could, and I got a kick out of seeing it work.
Why bother? Is the question I am most frequently asked about running Linux on the Dreamcast.
Well, it's not because it's a cheap alternative to a PC - it's not. The system is cheap - there are bucket loads of them for sale on ebay etc - and you get a lot of bang for your buck. But it's not a PC and wouldn't be a PC if you attached a RAID array for 40 GB disks to it - it's a games console.
As such it's pretty close to working in the "embedded space" and its also a challenge - we have a sound driver, but no sound DMA yet - we have a video driver, but no 3D yet - we have lots of devices for which support is still being worked on - microphones, cameras even.
Nobody is ever going to get noticed for writing a new driver for a sound card on a PC, but you do get noticed if you write one for the DC. And isn't getting noticed and complemented on your work what being a hacker is all about?
This site is subtitled "News for Nerds" and there isn't anything more nerdy that writing Linux drivers for a games console - so join the fun.
What is undocumented is the real power of this system - its advanced DSP properties. It's relatively easy to get it to play 48k bit rate stereo though.
Babbage's/FunCoLand/SuperSoftware and a couple of others are all now GameStop. You can check out their used DreamCast section here.
The one near me (Houston, TX) just got a bunch of used DCs in and they're selling them for $69, due to high demand. That should change soon.
On behalf of level-headed DC fanboys everywhere, I apologize over the jerk who modded you .It's something that happens in every article that mentions a game console. It's especially bad in PS2 articles, but only because the PS2 fanboys are more numerous.
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Ikaruga scoreboard (supports netranking)
Whenever I see things like this I think that it is quite cool, but wonder what the point really is. Isn't this guy just trying to re-invent the PC? Can't he do something better with his time?
Mike
-- Mike
The number of things that people have done with a dramcast amazes me. I don't know much about Dreamcast hardware, so here's my question:
Has all of this stuff been done with the Dreamcast because its hardware is extremely flexible, moreso than any other console?
Or is it simply because the Dreamcast has been around for long enough that people are starting to wonder what ELSE they can do with it, and modifying it?
JoeRobe
The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
netBSD also doesn't have a working mouse for DC.
netBSDs real strength is its portability and stability. When DEC/Compaq support runs out on VMS for VAX, I'm turning the VAX server where I work into a netBSD mailserver. The DC port was probably done for two reasons (all good): To have fun. And to test the claim that it can port to anything. (The Linux port was done for the same reasons I assume).
A possible problem with the Linux port as opposed to the NetBSD port (as I found with x86) is the difference in distros and platforms. (I never have problems with pkgsrc)
So?
Most people in the world use Windows on the desktop does that mean Linux is dead on the desktop?
The *BSD's have their fans and their niche.
For example I don't have to compile a weird SCSI emulation layer to run an IDE CDR/RW in NetBSD. I can run most Linux apps (I'm useing netscape under linux emulation right now), FreeBSD apps, Solaris x86 apps, and Windows apps using bochs.
For fun get two identical machines, one with NetBSD and one with linux. Run X, Abiword, Netscape, FreeCiv. Now run top. Compare the memory and swap useage.
I originally wrote a longer post, remarking about exactly why the GPU only makes sense in a graphics application. I edited myself down to keep it simple. But since you mention it...
Accuracy is certainly a problem. Today's PC graphics hardware computes results with 8 bits of accuracy. But just as important, I think, is the fact that the GPU is not a massively parallel unit in the first place. I.e., it does not have the ability to process in parallel more than a handful of data.
There is a reason for that: 3D graphics does not parallelize all that well. It is a big pain in the neck to try to fill multiple graphics pipelines. The applications programmers are not going to like it. So you keep it simple, deal with one polygon at a time. You might keep a few pixel pipelines full but even that only works well if your polygons are pretty big on screen.
Consequently these folks try hard to make their mostly serial hardware fast. It costs more money to make such a fast part.
If your problem is embarrassingly parallel, why try to reuse some expensive graphics specific part with a bunch of accuracy limitations? You can put a bunch of cheap DSPs on a board and go nuts. The original poster wanted to spend $15M on a large cluster, networked together with game controller cables and safety pins. That's nuts. It is not the cheapest way to get a large DSP array.
People do use MMX and other SIMD instructions, because they need to do media processing, and the desktop PC already has one CPU. For cost reasons it's not a good idea to squeeze a separate DSP in there. But don't tell me you would build a cluster of MMX enabled PCs to do a big parallel DSP task. Again it would not be the cheapest way.
Re: your headless idea. XBox has a UMA, so the frame buffer can be located in one chunk of main memory, and the GPU can be off chewing on some other part. So you could have a pretty display on your XBox cluster.