Ordering a Pizza Online on a SEGA Dreamcast in 2024

A few months ago, fellow Junkyard compatriot Harvey Jones notified me of a cool thing he'd seen in the Sega Online Discord. Considering Harvey's online/musical alias is Pizza Hotline, it was no surprise that what he wanted to share was, of course, pizza-themed...

Those of you in the loop may be aware that a sizeable section of our scene has been indulging in multiplayer gaming via fan-hosted servers for many years now, yet although it doesn't often get discussed, the ability to browse the web via the Dreamcast never disappeared either. Of course, given that the composition of your average website has changed dramatically since the turn of the Millennium, your mileage may vary while surfing the web via Sega's aging hardware. Many contemporary websites simply will not load, and to the dismay of geeks like us, few administrators are enlightened enough to produce Dreamcast-friendly versions of their sites, such as that created by Reye for the Dreamcast Junkyard (http://dcjy.reye.me).

But what if, after an exhilarating session of Phantasy Star Online, you are feeling hungry? Maybe you have a hankering for a piping hot pizza? You could reach for your smartphone and open your preferred delivery app... but no. Real Dreamcast gamers should order their pizza on the Dreamcast.

Well, that is exactly what "Delux" has proven to still be possible in the year of 2024. While ordering a pizza from Domino’s was actually possible on Dreamcast back in the day, Delux has been forced to think outside the box to acquire his favourite pizza pie. In the video that he has kindly prepared for us below, you can see the lengthy but very impressive process that is taken to place an order for two 12" pizzas with extra pepperoni - one pan style, one New York style - on the Domino's website.

So I suppose I should try and provide some kind of explanation for what is going on in the video... Okay, so basically, Delux is able to access the Domino's website on his Dreamcast by using a tool known as a "WRP", or "Web Rendering Proxy", which Google describes as a tool that's designed to "render web pages for use in antique web browsers". Wow... antique, huh? I'm not sure if I should be offended or not.

On his Dreamcast (complete with broadband adapter), Delux first navigates to his computer's IP address in the Dream Passport browser, then the Web Rendering Proxy tool on his computer fetches the page, renders an image of it, along with an image map (i.e. coordinates for where text input fields, buttons, and other things are) and serves the web page back to him on his Dreamcast as an interactive image that looks and functions just like the original site. For more info, check out the readme for the web rendering proxy.

It's the simple pleasures in life... just acquired in the most convoluted way possible.

While this method is perhaps not the easiest way to be ordering your pizza going forward, it is still an excellent showcase of the lengths the passionate Dreamcast community are willing to go to to see that the console continues to fulfil tasks many might assume it had lost the ability to perform, what with the constant advancements of technology (in this case, the web!)

For those using DreamPi to get their Dreamcast online, Delux recently released his own image for it called "DreamPi Plus 1.9V5", which provides "upgrades to the Dreamcast online experience". These include a web rendering proxy (beta), a DreamPod podcast player (hey, that's us!), a library of Dreamcast game manuals, a graphic interface to simplify the task of connecting your DreamPi to a Wi-Fi network, and much more!

If this is something that interests you, you can download DreamPi Plus 1.9V5 on the Dreamcast-Talk forums. Delux also says to get in touch with him through that thread if you want to collaborate for future updates, or to report issues. You can also find him frequenting the Dreamcast-Talk Discord channel.

Posting to Discord servers from a Dreamcast using DreamPi Plus 1.9V5's included web rendering proxy.

Thanks again to Delux for sending us video footage of his pizza ordering process. Also thank you to Pizza Hotline for making me aware of this crazy feat in the first place, and for letting me use one of his banging tunez in the video.

Will you be ordering your next pizza delivery on your Dreamcast? Are you feeling as hungry reading this article as I was writing it? Let us know in the comments below, along with your preferred choice of pizza toppings.