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Amateurs Pushing the Dreamcast's Boundaries
Wraggster writes "The Sega Dreamcast console, which died an early commercial death, has recently seen some amazing new projects mainly aimed at emulation. Recently, a coder named Bluecrab released a port of the Saturn emulator called Yabause for the Dreamcast. Also, GPF (Troy Davis) has ported the excellent Visual Boy Advance (Game Boy Advance Emulator) to the Dreamcast. Finally, yesterday it was announced that Nincest (Nintendo 64 Emulator), an early N64 emulator that played demos only, has also been ported to the Dreamcast. All the projects are somewhat slow, but the achievement of the work is not to be discounted. Who says the Dreamcast is dead?"
i'm to say. it's dead, let it go.
Having BSD on Dreamcast made the system appealing to me. Granted, NetBSD has been ported to every electronic device that has enough memory to hold the kernel. But there is a certain geeky alure to using a video game console as a terminal, or, as some people have demonstrated, even as a webserver.
I guess it's just the "I can do this" aspect that draws me to it. Just having the ability to tinker with things makes them more interesting.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=114624&cid=972 0923/
Creative Demolition
Wouldn't "known as" be more appropriate? At least I hope so, otherwise his parents gave him a very unhappy childhood.
No sig for you.
There's plenty of emulators available for the not-so-dead dreamcast
http://www.zophar.net/consoles/dreamcast.html
Best part about the Dreamcast is that it can be found for as low as $15. I recently picked one up at EB. It was a great decision as I can get all the games I want online. These kinds of projects just make me even happier to have bought it.
Don't forget that people were also able to burn games for the dreamcast without the use of modchips.
GroupShares Inc.
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artlu.net
I bought a dreamcast about a year ago to run my games. It makes a great emulator. I have tons of NES, SNES, and GB games on it. In fact I only have one actual dreamcast game. The Xbox can be modded to do this sort of thing also but when it is priced at 150 dollars and there is a 30 dollar alternative the dreamcast is a much better system for emulation purposes. I also have it set up to play VCDs as well as being able to use it as an MP3 player.
These days, Dreamcast freaks are more likely to be emulator users rather than Sega fanboys. All it takes is a CD-ROM burner, a Dreamcast of the appropriate vintage, and you've got hundreds of games on a handful of disks.
The answer is obvious. It's hard to beat Amiga freaks for pathetic-ness. Unless you're a BeOS freak, anyhow.
#naabhaprzrag, #sverubfr-000, #agi-fcbafberq, negvpyr[pynff*=' negvpyr-ary-'] { qvfcynl: abar !vzcbegnag; }
Sega
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Certainly this was the case with the Gameboy, although I've noticed a lot of games seem to carry a brand. Even if the Dreamcast is effectively dead, wouldn't there be some concern about any workaround for such a device?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
I can see it now, my Xbox emulates the Dreamcast which can emulate ___________.
Dead or not, the Dreamcast is a full-featured system, with lots of potential for those who want to spend the time learning it.
Granted, somebody like me, who is employed full-time, and has very little time as it is, won't be spending too much time on it (I still have my Dreamcast, complete with broadband adaptor, keyboard and serial cable). But, for somebody who has some free time and wants to learn about the Dreamcast, there's a lot of knowledge that can be gained, and applied to other systems.
Never hurts to have it on the resume - as a matter of fact, I got my job interview at Sega in part due to the demos that I did on the Commodore 64 back in the early 1990's.
-- Joe
Well, I never thought the source would be of any use to anyone (although the debugger was used in the dev of another emu). I was a Fresh/Soph in highschool when I wrote this. That was my last major project where I had the enthusiasm to code. I burned out after re-writing the part where I emulate the exception handling, and delay slots to be "proper" (to the R4x00 processor specs), I actually had a dirty hack in for the delay slot instructions. I rewrote that part of the code three times from scratch, and each time I would have the same problem; everything would break. I couldn't figure it out and eventually burned out. I keep my coding down to a minimum these days.
I hope only one thing, the porter, GPF?, puts the source back out again... I learned from other's source, and I hope others can learn from mine.
- marius
NINCEST 64: Get sis or get out.
The system itself could read CD-ROMs and GD-ROMs (Sega's special high-density format) perfectly. GD-ROMs had two tracks, a normal low-density track readable by normal CD-ROMs (PCs, etc) and a high-density Dreamcast-only track. The low-density track often had wallpapers and screensavers one could grab from them on a PC.
A Dreamcast disk requires a bit of special burning (two tracks, the first with at least 4 seconds of data, and other requirements) but the whole disk is accessible.
The reason CD reading was allowed was so that third parties could create unoffical products such as Action Replay, or so artists could have their music CDs have Dreamcast extras (a few CDs in Asia I believe actually did this, but I haven't heard of one in the west). Sega didn't expect the GD-ROM format to be read, but a way was found to read the GD-ROMs (by ripping them from the Dreamcast connected to a PC). The games were then cracked to work on a CD-ROM, and piracy followed. Homebrew developers then created thier own code.
Scorta futuere amo!
Porting stuff to the Dreamcast is 1,000 times more constructive than getting Linux to run on an iPod.
You can get a Dreamcast used pretty cheaply now and those of us who like to tinker will happily use this stuff.
It's worth noting another recent breakthrough in the DC scene - a DC emulator for PC that works with real games at a playable rate.
:) I can now play rez on my PC.
Chankast is that piece of software, and it's a joy to see running
However, with DCs available at as low as 15GBP, it's silly not to pick it up. As a games writer, it's my favourite console I've owned, for the high quantity of top-notch games that were released in its short life. In fact, if you haven't explored the DC's back catalogue - I'd thoroughly recommend it. It's one of modern gaming's best kept secrets.
Gamers Europe - Gaming News. Reviews.
... now if only someone would build broadband adapters for the DC - it's really hard to get one and they're pretty expensive.
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Who says the Dreamcast is dead?
Netcraft confirms it, Dreamcast is dying.
Well, somebody had to say it. ;-)
"Who says the Dreamcast is dead?"
If there isn't new hardware being produced, the architecture is 'dead' for all intents and purposes. I could write code to make the 8085 in my TRS-80 Model 100 emulate an 8088 and run MS-DOS on it. An enthusiast could get an old PDP-11 to emulate an Apple II.
It's cool, it's great hacking material, but it's a 'dead end' project. Nothing wrong at all with cool dead-end projects (Anybody need an Intersil 6100 chip? 12 bit static CMOS microcontrollers that run the PDP-8 instruction set rule!), but they're, ummm, dead.
resigned
Me and my cohorts at S+F Software are getting a game published via the Goat Store, if they can get the pressing details worked out. It's a addictive four player puzzle game called Inhabitants, also available on Lik-Sang
The nice thing about the DC is that it is quite easy to code for using open tools. The KallistOS library gives you easy access to the hardware. It even has a openGL library that does a decent job for simple 3d stuff, and a badass object oriented 2d library.
Seems the fan community for the Dreamcast is as enamored with them as the Newton Community is. Both groups continue to love their minicomputers, maintain them, and mod away! Very cool! While the DC is learning how to emulate, Newton just learned how to run Gameboy games. Newton now can do wi-fi and bluetooth, so will that be coming to DC as well? Bluetooth keyboards and controls anyone? Very cool stuff!
I can point you to many people.
dcemulation.com
dcemu uk
ConsoleVision
Boob
I learned how to code HTML and IRC on a Dreamcast. It was pretty fun.
DC Phone Home (ppt, rtsp only).
Great. /graf0z.
But I'm not sure how porting emulators of weaker hardware to the Dreamcast in any way constitutes "pushing it's boundaries".
Hmm...console as computer or terminal eh? Well the "geeky allure" certainly has nothing to do with novelty, as the concept is far from new. Witness the following:
1. The Bally Astrocade console of 1978 was the first to explore the concept commercially, as one of it's "game" carts was the BASIC programming language and cassette interface.
2. Later in 1978 Magnavox (the producer of the first ever home console called Odyssey) introduced the successor Odyssey^2. Marketed head-to-head with the Atari 2600 as a console, it actually had an integrated keyboard. It wasn't really a computer (The Sinclair ZX81 came standard with EIGHT TIMES the memory of the O^2!) the idea was that adventure/strategy games could better use a keyboard than a joystick, and that expanding it to a computer would simply involve adding a RAM expansion pack.
3. It seems Mattel had intentions from the start to give the Intellivision a computer expansion option, and touted those intentions from the console's intro in 1979. However, they were late in delivering on their promises, and were eventually forced by the FTC to bring out the computer expansion or pay huge fines. They did comply--barely--by selling a few hundred in test markets, then pulled out. Eventually the introduced a newer, quite different design to a wider market, however the result was a major disappointment.
4. Atari beat both Bally and Magnavox to the colour console market with the 2600, but it was a bit later in exploting the computer expansion option. This was probably because they figured the entry-level micro market was served adequately by its Atari 400 offering. In the end the "Graduate" keyboard was never released.
5. Coleco was probably had the most success at turning their Colecovision console into a computer in terms of units produced (300K to 500K, although much of that stock never sold) and time on the market (nearly 1.5 years starting in 1983). This was probably more to do with Coleco selling the ADAM as a self contained computer alongside the "expansion module 3" that attached to an existing Colecovision--which sold in lower numbers. The ADAM in fact simply contained a slightly modified Colecovision and the logic board of the Expansion Module 3 in one case.
And that only covers until 1983. Nintendo Famicom and the Sony PS2 could also be made into a computer (with the manufacturer's blessing and products). There certainly is some appeal in being able to "tinker" and have the flexibility of a full-fledged computer, so why did none of these ideas really take off?
I'd have to say that both price and features had a great deal to do with it--the same reason the whole market crashed in 1984. With the exception of the Coleco products (which failed because of poor marketing/late delivery and poor quality control of its initial run) all these expanded consoles were lousy computers, and the combined cost of the console and expander was the same or more than a better entry-level micro. Why would you purchase an Atari 2600 and graduate if the Atari 400 by itself was a way better system that had great games already? Why buy an intellivision that you MIGHT be able to expand to a computer when you could get a VIC or a 400 or a Speccy that was already a computer for the same price? Not only that, but these computers all came with great games to boot.
I also find the "geeky allure" appealing, but I think the market is limited--in fact I think the drive to "tinker" with some of these devices is because the were commercial failures. Hardcore fans feel like they are abandoned by the company and band together for support and to get the most out of the system. Because the supply of orphaned sys
As long as there are people who still enjoy tinkering with something, I really don't think it should be considered 'dead'. This applies to 'dead' consoles, such as the Dreamcast, and 'dead' computers/operating systems, such as the Amiga, and BeOS.:)
They may be dead commercially, but not dead for hobbyists.
A slow emulator is a worthless emulator. As a major emulation fan, I was considering getting a GP32 (GamePark32) handheld, due to the wealth of emulators available for it.
Then I looked into what is actually available. Sure, lots of emulators-- some of which are missing sound, and virtually ALL of which run at some fraction (1/3, 1/2, 2/3, whatever) of the speed of the "real" console.
Thanks, but no thanks. You don't have to be a purist (heck, if I was a purist, I'd be lugging around an actual SNES around in my backpack, and an LCD display to plug it into) to be MAJORLY put off by a non-full-speed emulator, or-- just as much-- an emulator without sound.
Can you imagine playing Final Fantasy 6, or Chrono Trigger, at 2/3 speed, with no sound?
I wouldn't want to. Not in a billion years.
To me, slow emulators have ONE use and ONE use only: Capturing screenshots of games.
(Incidentally, all of my comments apply solely to game console emulators. There are, obviously, uses for slow COMPUTER emulators-- although there comes a point where they become too slow for anything except development/debugging use (e.g. Bochs, which is so incredibly slow as to be a joke).)
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
There is also a man porting the original Zelda for the NES to the dreamcast. Of course, all sprites and such had to be changed, because Nintendo found out about it (back when it was for PC only) and used the DMCA to force the creators to either drop it, or stop using their art. The link for today's project, Openlynks, is located here.
Are you telling me that you don't see the connection between government and laughing at people? - Interviewer
ok see i thought we were discussing playing DC games, so there is no emulator being used there on your DC, only on your PC (see in my post that i said DC games weren't emulatable until recently on PCs)
and umm...i don't think factoring the PC in is fair, as if you play it on an emulator on your -PC-, then you already have one! and as nearly all of PCs sold to consumers right now have CD burners already on them, that may not be so good either to factor in...even so, if you don't have a burner you always say "hey friend, burn this cd for me plz" takes a few extra minutes, and in a college setting? fuggidaboutit 2 seconds and you'd have your selfboot from someone in the dorm...i just moved outta one, i know what it's like ^_^
so both your price arguments are pretty much invalid...we have a dreamcast system bought (15 bucks?) versus a ps-usb converter (15 bucks), extra controllers (10 bucks apiece?) etc etc ^_^
but personally i do it your way...just that you seemed rather clueless about the fact that playing DC games on a DC is -much- easier than playing them on a PC