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.