Dreamcast Broadband Adapters

JayBonci writes "Dust off the old Dreamcast. If you're one of the many like myself who still enjoy their Dreamcast or are aspiring DC hackers, then you may want to pay attention to a quiet announcement by CSI, the Japanese manufacturer of the Dreamcast Broadband Adapter (flaky, but understandable translation provided by the fish). If you have no idea what the BBA is, the official page here. If CSI gets 1000 pre-orders for the unit, they will be willing to make another production run. Keep in mind that these units are very useful for the Dreamcast Linux efforts and NetBSD/Dreamcast, and that Japanese units work on US systems."

Comments

Re:Slowly into that good night

[commodoresloat]

It's hard to believe that the Dreamcast, with it's better graphics handling and ease of programming, ever lost out to the PS2.

I guess if you've got the resources of Sony, you can pretty much screw anyone you like.

It's hard to believe that the Betamax, with its better sound and picture quality, ever lost out to the VHS.

I guess if you've got the resources of JVC, you can pretty much screw anyone you like.

wow

[nyquist_theorem]

Ok - this is a *big* deal. Anyone who's surfed Ebay looking for a $150USD DC BBA knows that they're horrifically overvalued for what they are - a bit of plastic and an Realtek (8139?) ethernet chip. I wonder what other companies might think of re-tooling up their production lines in light of the fact that their discontinued products sellon the used market for well over the original MSRP? (Roland TB-303, anyone?)

Useful?

[evilviper]

I can't understand the obsesion with making a gaming machine run Linux/BSD, with or without a network card. Just follow the money trail.

You may have gotten your DC for $99, without a harddrive, NIC, et al.

Meanwhile, you can get a 900MHz PC, with 10GB hard drive, NIC, Modem, etc for $300.

Call me crazy, but I'd stick with the one that I can get replacement parts for.

I can understand the draw of the i-opener, and the tuxphone, but I don't see any particular draw to the D.C.

Re:Slowly into that good night

[phaze3000]

Not only that, but there were actually some fun games that looked good too.

As an owner of both a PS2 and a Dreamcast (amongst quite a few other consoles) I was quite puzzled by this comment. The PS2 release games were pretty piss-poor to be honest (with the possible exception of Tekken Tag if fighting games are your thing, but IMO it doesn't come close to the almighty Soul Calibur). Even now, I'd say the Dreamcast has way more top quality titles:

PS2:

• GT3
• GTA3
• Ico
• Tekken Tag
• Rez

Dreamcast:

• Soul Calibur
• Jet Set Radio
• Virtua Tennis
• Ferrari F355 Challenge
• Shenmue
• Rez

With the exception of GTA3, you could argue that for every PS2 game there's another in the same genre on the Dreamcast that's better. Of course, the DC didn't have Sony's marketing might, or the selling point that it would play DVDs too...