Guest Audio Article: Taking Your Dreamcast Online With a WiFi Ethernet Bridge

There has been a lot of activity recently regarding getting the old Dreamcast back online, and several high-profile projects have emerged. Possibly the most well known at this stage is the DreamPi method, developed by Luke Benstead. Now, while getting the Dreamcast online using the DreamPi is relatively easy if you have a good level of technical knowledge, it can seem a little daunting if you are a dunce like me. Even more so if you have questions about how to do it using a wifi connection.

Happily, Sean 'Nz17' Robinson (no relation to Sean 'Coleco Chameleon' Robinson, by the way) has launched a new audio series called The Video Game Antiquarian, and the first episode focuses on this subject entirely. The Video Game Antiquarian: Taking Your Dreamcast Online With a WiFi Ethernet Bridge does exactly what it says on the tin, and while Sean does get quite technical later on, he does a great job of explaining the theory of getting any dial-up device online, and also giving clear instructions.

Enough from me though - hit play on the audio player below and allow your ears to drink in his dulcet tones. Who said being a Dreamcast fan couldn't be educational?!

If you'd like to see more of Sean's work, be sure to visit Nz17 Productions and if you live in the Naples, Utah area you might want to check out the site for his upcoming gaming convention G.A.M. Rocks - Gaming, Anime and More...it's Japan-a-mania in the Rockies!

Would Upgrades Have Prolonged The Dreamcast?

Sony's recent confirmation of a new, upgraded PlayStation 4 got me thinking. The first thing it got me thinking about was how much longer my £300 PS4 will be a part of Sony's plans. I mean, I've never really had any cause for concern over the long-term future of my next-gen console of choice, even in light of the constant console-bashing that blares from my headphones whenever I listen to a 'big' gaming podcast. But now I'm wondering if my shiny, jet-powered parallelogram will be outmoded before I've even had the time to pay off the credit card I bought it with (hint: I won't). The articles I've read state that we PS4 proles have nothing to worry about, as the 'Neo' will simply be a slightly beefier system and all future PS4 software will have two modes - one for each tier of the hardware.

This kind of reminds me of the N64 Expansion Pak from Nintendo back in 1998, where 99% of the games that used it were still playable on the base unit without the extra 4MB RAM upgrade, but if you had that magical lozenge thrumming under the flap on the front of your console, you could witness the eye-watering magnificence of medium-res Nintendo graphics. Unless you were playing ISS 2000, in which case you got a flicker book version of everyone's favourite footy game.

What I'm getting at here is that Sony obviously thinks the current PS4 isn't powerful enough for what's around the corner in terms of gaming experiences. Looking at the impending PlayStation VR it's possible that they're on to something...but this isn't about the PS4. It's about the Dreamcast, and whether Sega's system could have had a longer period in the public eye if it had been upgradeable.

"The sky is the limit with Dreamcast. We've created a box that is almost infinitely expandable. As new technologies come around, we'll be able to do anything we want to it. One of Sega's big pushes at the moment is the trend of the static box. There will no longer be a box coming out of Sega that we put on a shelf and forget about. The standard 'one box for five years' model is gone."

Sega Source - Total Control magazine, April 1999

The Death of the Dreamcast in Press Releases

It's a funny old world. I say that not because I've just inhaled an entire bottle of laughing gas (I have though, anything to get me through the day). No, I say it because it seems that every time I fire up my creaking MacBook and open Safari I discover something new about the Dreamcast. Well, not new as such...but new to me and probably to you too. New in the sense that you've probably not seen it and now you will, thus making it 'news.' See? Not in the same sense that the shite printed on the front of any random tabloid is news, but news nonetheless. Am I rambling? Thought so. Excuse me while I open the valve on this gas bottle a little wider.

Right, what I'm waffling about is this: I found a website that basically appears to list the Sega press releases in a sort of creepy chronological order, unwittingly documenting the death of the Dreamcast like some kind of obituary locked in time. The best bit about this is that the website isn't actually online anymore and can only be viewed by using our old friend the Way Back Machine.

I swear this blog isn't sponsored by Internet Archive by the way - I realise how often I've mentioned the thing recently but it really is an invaluable tool when trying to preserve lost Dreamcast-related stuff. Stuff the average person wouldn't give a shit about, but that us Dreamcast obsessives find totally fascinating. Most of this stuff has slipped into the past, forgotten and barely ever looked at since it was written by unknown fingers on long-lost keyboards (probably attached to a P90 with 128MB of RAM), and due to hardly anyone having the internet back at the turn of the century (yep, that's technically what it was called) I doubt many people gave much of a toss back then either. Happily, I'm here now so don't worry - I won't let this rubbish pass into antiquity without spamming your Facebook/Twitter/Reddit timeline with it first! Huzzah!

Warning. I feel it is my duty to announce here that this post is quite text heavy, so if you don't like reading stuff (reports show only around 9% of internet users actually like reading articles as opposed to sharing pictures of cats and burgers on social media), you should probably skip it. Still here? Excellent, let's go!

UPDATE: Will a NAOMI or Triforce GD-ROM Work in a Dreamcast?

In the spirit of last years hard-hitting journalistic exposé - Will a Dreamcast Lightgun Work on a Sega Game Gear Screen? - comes a new groundbreaking investigative piece:

A pleasingly unexpected result.

UPDATE: Lets try this again with a Triforce GD-rom...

Since this warning was pretty generic, I expect the same result with a Chihiro disc, but I don't own any of those to test out.

The Games That Never Were: Episode 7

Episode 7 of Pcwzrd's The Games That Never Were has arrived, and as is the norm I'm happy to share it here at the Junkyard. The series - as the name suggests - is an insightful look back at a selection of titles that were announced for the Dreamcast but for various reasons never made it out of the door. Episode 7 looks at another batch of promising games we never got the chance to play in their intended guises (I say that because many people - including myself - have played one of the games discussed in this new episode), and explores possible reasons for their disappearance.

The video is embedded below, but if you'd rather read my drivel instead that's cool. Games covered include the ambitious space-based RPG Jump Runner from Glass Ghost Games, Worms Pinball from Team 17, Armada II: Exodus from Metro 3D, Treasure's Gun Beat and Sega's cancelled homage to Star Fox, Geist Force. This is short and sweet because an intro to a video doesn't really need to be any longer, and I need to go and tidy up my disgusting tip of a flat. Enjoy!

Thanks once again to Pcwzrd for putting this together. The previous episodes can be viewed by visiting Dreamcastic Channel on YouTube or by following the links below.

Previous Episodes:
The Games That Never Were: Episode 1
The Games That Never Were: Episode 2
The Games That Never Were: Episode 3
The Games That Never Were: Episode 4
The Games That Never Were: Episode 5
The Games That Never Were: Episode 6

The Dreamcast Dreamphone

Up until today I'd never heard of the Dreamcast Dreamphone, and I'd wager many other people haven't either. What meagre information there is on this little-known device can only be accessed through liberal use of the Way Back Machine; but I'll explain how I came to find this odd and fascinating contraption before explaining what I've pieced together about it.

Sorry. Wrong number.

Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. Twas a dark and stormy evening and I was randomly browsing the internet for cheap Dreamcast games, when I happened across the following listing at US website eStarland.com. At first I thought I must be looking at an April Fools' hoax or something because even though I consider myself to be quite well versed in Dreamcast peripherals, the Dreamphone is something I've never, ever heard of.

After finding this item (it's out of stock by the way, and is likely to be so for some time to come forever), I did some Googling but could find barely any information on it. There are thousands of references to a board game of the same name (see above), and a couple of forum threads from 2004 and 2007 where people seemingly stumbled upon the Dreamcast Dreamphone in exactly the same manner as I did...and virtually nothing else, anywhere.

Katana Simple Checker Innards Revealed.

The image of the Dreamcast with the weird circuit board hanging out the side has been floating around online for a while now, and has been pretty much confirmed as some form of development tool or quality control checking device. The theory is that games were sent to Sega for testing and if they were run in this system and indicator LEDs flashed, then there was something wrong and the game wasn't approved. Or something like that, anyway.

The mystery board complete with heatsink

I'm about as far removed from a development tool expert as you could possibly get so if I got that hilariously wrong, then I apologise. The reason I'm explaining all this is that some folks over at the Assembler Games forum have started to re-investigate this odd contraption and the the guts of the console have finally been revealed.

A close up of the board with the heat sink removed. Source: Assember Games

You can see the 'Katana Simple Checker' text on the main board. Source: Assembler Games

The board sticking out of the side of this Dreamcast does have some interesting markings on it as well as what looks like an extra processor (and of course the aforementioned LEDs) but it's the main board which adds more intrigue. With the top half of the shell removed, it's clear that the exposed circuitry is actually a part of the main board itself and also has the marking 'Katana Simple Checker' printed on it. There is information about a Test GD on Sega Retro, but this refers to a setup that used a disc and a device that connected to the Dreamcast via the serial port - this system has the extra PCB hard wired to the main board.

As stated, there are people far more knowledgeable than I already discussing the possible uses for this Dreamcast over at the Assembler forums, but I thought this was worth bringing to the attention of the Dreamcast community at large in case someone out there has any more information on it.

Source: Assembler Games