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SD Adapter For Dreamcast Released
YokimaSun writes "The Dreamcast was the last console by Sega that had innovations that today's consoles have taken on board, i.e. broadband online gaming and innovative gaming controllers (such as the fishing controller). The console still lives on today, thanks to the support of the homebrew community that still churns out games and emulators and also the odd commercial release for the console by independent developers. Today the spark has been ignited by the fascinating release of an SD adapter for the Dreamcast that allows homebrew games to be played without the need to burn to disc. It's time to dust off those Dreamcast consoles and get back into free gaming. The same company have also released a Dreamcast modified with VGA support and a front-loading SD slot and its own BIOS. Awesome to relive some of those Dreamcast classics."
I thought the Dreamcast had a dial up modem...
"The same company have also released a Dreamcast modified with VGA support"
The Dreamcast always has had VGA support.
Dreamcast VGA
This is welcome news for any (like me) who have Dreamcasts that work perfectly but have malfunctioning GD-ROM drives. Hopefully someone picks it up for Western distribution.
This is very interesting news. I used to write homebrew for the Dreamcast but my poor unit broke down. Poor laser went bad. Never did get another one. If this pans out, I may need to pick up myself another unit. Always did love the Dreamcast.
SEGA is allowed to got batshit insane IF they are using Sega's code in their custom BIOS. they could also freak out about them calling it "Dreamcast" but unless its being sold as a NEW system instead of a used one that has been modified then they wont have an issue. Sont still has alot of IP tied up in their dreamcast library. the last thing they want is to seem soft on piracy. Hopefully this will be more of an enthusiast item the n setting a new market (thus attracting more attention...because i REALLY want/need one of those SD adapters)
they say it is often more relevant then the comment above, all we know is its called the Sig!
9-9-99 was an awesome date. I got a Dreamcast for my Birthday. I could browse the web on my Dreamcast faster than on my Pentium 2 PC. And there were plenty of awesome online multiplayer games. VMUs were awesome too. I'm surprised we don't see mini LCD screens on xbox controllers yet.
I also had a third party VGA adapter. The dreamcast supports a true VGA 480p signal which was awesome for it's time. Almost every game supported it too.
There was also the Treamcast. Which was a 3rd party dreamcast with a flip up LCD screen, basically the same thing that guy does with the 360 laptop mods.
The Dreamcast actually had a ton of quality top notch games I still play it once and a while.
I still play it once and a while.
http://eliteownage.com/cc2.png
FWIW the SD card modification was invented back in 2008 by a Japanese guy here:
http://f17.aaa.livedoor.jp/~takotako/dcserial_ft232bm.php#sdcard
It's an internal mod as the serial port connector is very hard to come by. All this company did was make an external version and package it with (I'm assuming) a CD-R packed with emulators and ROMs without the respective author's permission.
It's a cool product, but it would have been cooler if the original guy who did the hardware hack (and the emulator authors who are getting ripped off) could somehow have been compensated for their hard work which made this product possible.
I know I'm dreaming, console products out of China are all rip-offs so they have zero R&D expenses.
This is based off a free mod from this site
Worms and Fur Fighters was pretty ballin' as well.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
If your a dev you might have to burn a lot of disks when your doing bug checking. Yea an emulator will prob help with alot of that, but running it on the hardware can make a difference.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
I still think the Dreamcast controllers were the worst ever produced. Worse than the GameCube controllers, and worse than the N64 controllers.
Why? None of those is perfect, but they're not too bad either. The Playstation's controller, on the other hand, is a complete, intolerable piece of junk.
Circumcision is child abuse.
It cheers me to see the system living on so long after its official death.
I know I'll get downmodded for this by someone, but hopefully, calmer heads can even the odds. I actually LIKED the Dreamcast controller, as it was quite comfortable for me to use, and honestly seemed to make sense to me, overall. It was actually better than the stock controller for the original XBox, in my opinion, although Madcats made a smaller XBox controller that was much better by comparison. Gamecube controllers were about equal for my taste, and the God-awful abomination that was the N64 controller was, bar none, absolutely the WORST controller I have ever had the misfortune of having inflicted upon me during my entire gaming history, which, incidentally, goes as far back as Telstar's Pong console, which was, itself, pretty awful. If there was anything that could have been added/ changed on the Dreamcast controller to improve it, I would've suggested a) making the stock controller wireless with rechargeable batteries built in (like the Sixaxis for the PS3), and b) adding two additional shoulder buttons just above the trigger buttons. Maybe skewing the 4-button diagonal array on the right hand side clockwise by about 5 degrees would have been nice, but not really necessary, and moving the analog stick to the right and up ever so slightly would have made it ideal for me.
As for the VMU? Just seemed like a waste of an LCD screen to me, a simple memory card would have done the job just as well for a whole lot less, and the concept of playing minigames on the VMU just seemed utterly pointless and idiotic to me. Of course, my VMU never did function as anything other than a memory card for me, the other functions seemed non functional, perhaps I had a defective unit?
Yeah, homebrew classics like Soul Calibur, Shenmue, Jet Grind Radio, Space Channel 5, Crazy Taxi, Virtua Tennis & Tennis 2K2, Skies of Arcadia, Power Stone & Power Stone 2, Sonic Adventure & Sonic Adventure 2, Samba De Amigo, Virtua Fighter 3TB, Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future, Chu Chu Rocket!, Phantasy Star Online, Street Fighter 3:Third Strike and other Fighters, Ikaruga and other Shmups. Oh wait, those are all commercial games. If you had them already, why would you take the time to transfer them to SD, when you could just put the disc in and play immediately?
Alternatives such as XNA mean that I don't have to worry about such an archaic system in order to run code on a console!
XNA is best among modern consoles, but it still isn't perfect: no porting your existing codebase written in standard C++ because XNA is managed-only, no real-time audio synthesis, a ban on NPCs that speak a fantasy language, the system requirements of XNA Game Studio (you can't just use the old Windows PC that you occasionally drag out just for the odd app), and a $495 certificate bill over the expected five-year life of the console just for the right to run programs that you wrote on hardware that you bought. Details
Why go to all the trouble of hardware hacks and improvements on technology that is that old?
Because it's a console. Advantages of consoles over PCs include SDTV output as a standard feature, a guaranteed minimum performance level of the hardware, and a culture of actually using the two to four controller ports for local multiplayer gaming. The Dreamcast just lacks the disadvantage of a lockout chip.
saying the playstation controller is worse than a controller that had not one, not two, but three different ways of holding it, depending on which buttons you wanted to use, is just stupid.
And none of those ways to hold the N64 cramp my hands as bad as the only way to hold a PSX controller.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I've got nice big hands, and the PSX controller sucks. I liked it at first, but the more I use it the more it cramps my hands. It's essentially an SNES controller with handles hanging off. But the handles mean I can't rest the controller on my fingers like I used to, I have to grasp the handles. I've tried not grasping the handles, it requires sustained concentration, not natural at all. Problem is, the handles on the PSX controller are thin and straight. So I end up really curling my fingers around it, cramps right up.
The Logitech Dual-Action, now there's a nice controller. See the nice big grips, those fill up all the space in my palms. I can play forever with that thing. It has an actual d-pad too. It's superior to the PSX controller in every way but one, the square holes around the analog sticks. I mean, wtf.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I would have to agree Atari 5200 controllers ranked right up there with Intellivision controllers, those things died all the time.
Because it's fun?
Compact Flash card for Apple IIs: http://dreher.net/?s=projects/CFforAppleII&c=projects/CFforAppleII/main.php
(I have no connection, though a friend has written some of the drivers)