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Games Entertainment

Dreamcast Broadband Adapters 186

Posted by michael from the lpb dept.
JayBonci writes "Dust off the old Dreamcast. If you're one of the many like myself who still enjoy their Dreamcast or are aspiring DC hackers, then you may want to pay attention to a quiet announcement by CSI, the Japanese manufacturer of the Dreamcast Broadband Adapter (flaky, but understandable translation provided by the fish). If you have no idea what the BBA is, the official page here. If CSI gets 1000 pre-orders for the unit, they will be willing to make another production run. Keep in mind that these units are very useful for the Dreamcast Linux efforts and NetBSD/Dreamcast, and that Japanese units work on US systems."
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Dreamcast Broadband Adapters

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  • It's hard to believe that the Dreamcast, with it's better graphics handling and ease of programming, ever lost out to the PS2.

    I guess if you've got the resources of Sony, you can pretty much screw anyone you like.

    • Re:Slowly into that good night (Score:4, Insightful)

      by commodoresloat ( 172735 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @04:19AM (#4135937)
      It's hard to believe that the Dreamcast, with it's better graphics handling and ease of programming, ever lost out to the PS2.

      I guess if you've got the resources of Sony, you can pretty much screw anyone you like.

      It's hard to believe that the Betamax, with its better sound and picture quality, ever lost out to the VHS.

      I guess if you've got the resources of JVC, you can pretty much screw anyone you like.

      • Re:Slowly into that good night (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        You're so clever! You took the original post and switched a few words... You're my hero, because you're so smart.

        Really. I love you!
      • Does this old betamax example bug the hell out of anyone else? The betamax's problem was both being less open than the VCR, and the shorter tapes. Betamax wasn't an all out better option, SO STOP USING IT AS A DAMN EXAMPLE. It just weakens your point
        • This analogy might actually work with the PS2 and Dreamcast. The Dreamcast used GD-ROM's, which could be compared to shorter tapes. But most importantly, the graphics for ps2 games blew the DC away when the ps2 came out. Not only that, but there were actually some fun games that looked good too. Considering this, it's very easy to see why the PS2 kicked DC's ass. The Dreamcast might have done some things better as the Betamax did, but the PS2 appealed more to the market. Shiny new expensive toy vs. Older less shiny toy. Most customers don't care how easy it is to develop for a system, and sales are what drive the system. No developer is going to boycott developing for a system if it's wildy successful but hard to code for.

          BTW, Dreamcast was the last gaming platform I bought, and I was sorry to see it fade away and die, but when I bought it I knew it couldn't compete once the new generation arrived.

          • Re:Slowly into that good night (Score:4, Insightful)

            by phaze3000 ( 204500 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @02:01PM (#4137167) Homepage
            Not only that, but there were actually some fun games that looked good too.

            As an owner of both a PS2 and a Dreamcast (amongst quite a few other consoles) I was quite puzzled by this comment. The PS2 release games were pretty piss-poor to be honest (with the possible exception of Tekken Tag if fighting games are your thing, but IMO it doesn't come close to the almighty Soul Calibur). Even now, I'd say the Dreamcast has way more top quality titles:

            PS2:

            • GT3
            • GTA3
            • Ico
            • Tekken Tag
            • Rez

            Dreamcast:

            • Soul Calibur
            • Jet Set Radio
            • Virtua Tennis
            • Ferrari F355 Challenge
            • Shenmue
            • Rez

            With the exception of GTA3, you could argue that for every PS2 game there's another in the same genre on the Dreamcast that's better. Of course, the DC didn't have Sony's marketing might, or the selling point that it would play DVDs too...

        • Thank you! I'll even go one further and argue that the quality of the picture and sound on Beta was "negligably" better than VHS. I mean, come on, picture quality back then wasn't anything great to begin with, people had shitty TVs and shitty connections. I never noticed a better picture on the few Beta tapes I watched. At least not to a point where I could attribute the picture quality to Beta's "superiority".

          Longer tapes were simply more useful to people and Beta blew it big.
          • Slow down there turbo... Beta isn't completely gone, even today. Many studios use it (yes, even today) for the simple fact that it is indeed so much better than VHS. As recently as a few years ago you could spend $30,000 on a professional video camera using... you guessed it, the Beta format. I'm sure you can still buy them, though I'd guess the price has dropped a bit. Just because you happen to have piss-poor quality on the TV screen doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the quality of the format. That would be akin to saying, "SACDs aren't much better than my regular audio CDs. I mean, when I play them through this $10 pair of computer speakers, I can't hardly notice a difference."

      • Re:Slowly into that good night (Score:1, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It's hard to believe that the Betamax, with its better sound and picture quality, ever lost out to the VHS.

        I guess if you've got the resources of JVC, you can pretty much screw anyone you like.

        I remember reading that one of the big underground factors was the porn industry - they decided they'd sell VHS movies and not Betamax.

        So if you've got the resources of the porn industry, you can pretty much screw anyone you like.
        • I remember reading that one of the big underground factors was the porn industry - they decided they'd sell VHS movies and not Betamax.
          So if you've got the resources of the porn industry, you can pretty much screw anyone you like.

          Well... that's kinda what the porn industry is about, no? ;)
        • They didn't decide, it was decided for them - Sony didn't want family unfriendly filth on Beta, so the story goes, and the adults who bought videos went for VHS.

          Mum and Dad may not want little Johnny watching "Anal Annie's Greatest Hits", but they wanted to be able to watch it themselves.

          It's interesting to view the online gaming plans for the X-Box and PS2 in that light - Sony are making it lasseiz-faire, Microsoft are promising control, safety and decency.
      • >It's hard to believe that the Betamax, with its better sound and picture quality, ever lost out to the VHS.

        Oh no, not this one again.

        Picture quality -- about 10% better (barely) in units from the same era. A modern $70 VCR still beats the pants off it, though. BetaMax had only an extra 10 lines of resolution, and a very slightly less noisy picture going for it at the time. Not to mention this is largely due to running the tape faster, which happens to be their (alternate) reason for dying. You have to switch tapes during just about anything if you want the quality to beat VHS. Hardly anything to write to slashdot about... :-)

        Sound quality -- AFAIK, while VHS started out mono, a full HiFi Stereo VHS VCR gives a similar fidelity to a Sony Betamax VCR, although without actually hearing a unit it is hard to tell (not that VHS HiFi sounds bad -- its right inbetween a decent Metal casette and a good CD).

        Besides, Sony eats their young [rr.com]. And therefore its their fault Beta died. And a good thing, too.

        It's just one in a very long list of failures of Sony in the US, along with 8mm, Memory Sticks, and MD. Sony just can't seem to figure out what makes us Americans buy stuff, and probably never will as long as they keep it so very proprietary.

        Here's a little more [hypernova.co.uk] on that format war, for those interested.
        • It's just one in a very long list of failures of Sony in the US, along with ... MD...

          Sony just can't seem to figure out what makes us Americans buy stuff

          How american of you. MD is wildly popular in europe, and there are just as many europeans as americans, if not more. 80 million alone in germany. Almost everyone I know has an MD player in thier stereo, and another portable.

          Americans are not the only people in the world that buy consumer electronics outside of Japan.
          • >MD is wildly popular in europe, and there are just as many europeans as americans, if not more.

            After being to Europe (the UK specifically) personally, I can tell you all that this is an overstatement.

            While MD is used and is available in the UK (unlike America, where it is Dead with a capital D) from what I saw just a few months ago it is -- by far -- less popular that CDs, which are its rival. I would safely suggest the ratio is much less than 1 MD player per CD player.

            Perhaps you know a wildly different set of people than me, or perhaps you are being too German-centric?

            >Americans are not the only people in the world that buy consumer electronics outside of Japan.

            I know. Europeans have as well, as it seems, by majority rejected MD as a standard. Thank God too because I don't like Sony ruling on how I can use their format (did they ever make it computer recordable? and if they did is it even 10% of the speed, or 100% of the data, or even 200% the price of an 8 cm CD-R?)
            • >While MD is used and is available in the UK (unlike America, where it is Dead with a capital D) from what I saw just a >few months ago it is -- by far -- less popular that CDs, which are its rival

              It's not popular but it's definately not dead. Myself and several of my friends use MD. On a recent business trip to Boston, I observed many students walking around with them. It was never meant to compete with CDs. It's original competition was cassette tape, but I believe that competition has now shifted to MP3 players. I'm not sorry I invested in MD 8 years ago. It served it's purpose (Mobile recordable format) and now I've moved on to MP3 players. I'll continue to use my MD player until it breaks.

          • i am actuyally living in sweden, however, I have been to germany and seen many md players in shops, lots of people on the trains i was riding on had them, and all of my friends there had them too. I mentioned germany because they are the most populated country in europe. Now, as for sweden I have noticed just as many md players as in germany. sure it's not a ratio of 1:1 with cd players, but it definitely is with cassettes and mp3 players, which it is positioned against, not CDs. I always think it is funny wathcing american movies that take place in the not-to-distant future and they all use MDs as data storage :) but anyway, i am niether german, nor swedish, nor even european. I am an american travelling europe.
        • It's just one in a very long list of failures of Sony in the US, along with 8mm, Memory Sticks, and MD

          1. Memory sticks are widely used in a variety of digital cameras.
          2. Ever since Napster Sony ramped up its MD campaign in america and theyr actually quickly gaining popularity. I know a lot of people who have them
          • >Memory sticks are widely used in a variety of digital cameras.

            Correction:

            Memory sticks are widely used in a variety of SONY digital cameras. Which, by common consensus, are crap.

            Those memory sticks are full of DRM and likely won't ever be readable in anything other than Sony equipment unless companies want to pay Sony for "rights" to a product that is already dated.

            >Ever since Napster Sony ramped up its MD campaign in america and theyr actually quickly gaining popularity

            Yeah, I saw the ads in the Future Shop toilet paper they always send me.

            Seems to me MD still doesn't beat 8 cm MP3-CD in any way at all, even with the LP versions.

            Sony can advertise all it likes. As long as the process for making an MP3 CD of "napster" songs is this:

            - Download music
            - Burn music in under 2 minutes

            While the MD version is this

            - Download music
            - Hook up MD recorder to SPDIF
            - Hook SPDIF to SCMS stripper
            - Hook SCMS stripper to soundcard
            - Open MP3 in winamp
            - Push record on MD recorder
            - Push play in MP3 player
            - Title the song
            - Rinse, lather and repeat (until you run out of space on your MD disc, which you will far quicker, even with LP mode, than you would for equivalent quality MP3s)...

            It isn't going to be popular. AFAIK, Sony has no easy to get MD-Recorder drives for a computer. Not to mention the media is approximately 10x more expensive than CD-R.
        • Yeah, that walkman idea was a real flop, too. ;-)
    • it was the controller. Just like the XBox. Nuff said.
    • I don't know about the relative graphics handling capabilities or programming ease (the latter I've heard has been getting better for PS2), but I do see the end result:

      My PS2 has better games, plays DVDs, and has the best damn controller design in the history of gaming.

      I know the Dreamcast is a whole lot cheaper, and hackable, and if I want to learn some embedded linux stuff, I'll go pick one up sometime. This is good news for linux on console enthusiasts, and maybe the diehard PSO players still left, but I'm more excited about the broadband adaptor for PS2 that's coming out soon, and seeing what impact it has on console gaming, and the linux for PS2 initiatives.

      I'm not saying the Dreamcast didn't have great games. Sega has brilliant games, and I'm thankful that they're now developing games for PS2. But you can't deny that there are fantastic games on PS2 that outclass any other console's efforts. Also, last time I checked, there wasn't anybody developing new games for Dreamcast that would exploit this new hardware.
    • They're both getting Ikaruga. Who cares? ;)
    • I loved my DC. The gamne selection kept dwindling, so I had to trade in for a XBox. It had great games, though.

  • wow (Score:4, Insightful)

    by nyquist_theorem ( 262542 ) <mbelleghem@NOSPAM.gmail.com> on Sunday August 25, 2002 @04:21AM (#4135941) Homepage
    Ok - this is a *big* deal. Anyone who's surfed Ebay looking for a $150USD DC BBA knows that they're horrifically overvalued for what they are - a bit of plastic and an Realtek (8139?) ethernet chip. I wonder what other companies might think of re-tooling up their production lines in light of the fact that their discontinued products sellon the used market for well over the original MSRP? (Roland TB-303, anyone?)
    • I was under the impression the hysteria surrounding the 303 had passed...

      There was a time a decade or so ago when they were one of the few boxes you could get to make those sort of noises with that kind of interface, but surely all the fools and their money have been parted by now?

      I never made acid anyhow... those kinds of squealing synthlines give me the shits.

      • i hope they do pass soon, they are passing though a few years ago you'd see them for well over $1000.-- u.s. moneys on ebay.... now they are around 500 - 600 i'd like one for the same reason i have an atari 2600 and a roland juno 60....... "squealing synthlines give me the ____"
    • As with any item sold on a free market, the price is set by the supply, relative to the demand. It doesn't matter what the actual item is. A casual inspection of the Antique Roadshow on PBS will give you some indication of this phenomenon to the extreme. Collectors are willing to purchase items (Pez dispensers, teddy bears, 1950s toys) which the bulk of the population might view as near-worthless novelty items for excessive sums of cash. As always, the more limited the number, the higher the price.

      In this case, the supply is extremely limited, because one could only purchase a DC BBA for a short period of time, directly from Sega's website. As I recall, they were not even available from Amazon or other retailers. Shortly thereafer, the DC got yanked, and all the BBAs were yanked from production as well. At the same time, while only a very small number of games were ever produced to support broadband, the limited quantity makes them very highly prized items. (ie, We BBA owners love to own yer non-BBA asses in Unreal Tournament. heh.)

      Bob
  • I wonder what we could expect to pay for one of these if the order goes through...

    I've been sort of kicking myself for not buying one at a reasonable price before the supply died out. But now I might have my chance.
    • oh my god i had this great idea but was foiled by the overpriced DC nics... here is how it goes...

      1. buy 10 dc's @ $25 a peice
      2. buy 10 nics @ $50 a peice (lets hope)
      3. hook em together and setup a boew^H^H^H^H *duck* i mean setup a sweet gaming room... thats it
      4.????
      5.profit!
  • Anata no namae wa non desu ka? What is your name? watashi wa dreamcast Linux ga suki desu! I like dreamcase linux! watashi wa DC Braudband adapter ga suki desu! same as above:-)

  • Useful? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @05:27AM (#4136032) Journal
    I can't understand the obsesion with making a gaming machine run Linux/BSD, with or without a network card. Just follow the money trail.

    You may have gotten your DC for $99, without a harddrive, NIC, et al.

    Meanwhile, you can get a 900MHz PC, with 10GB hard drive, NIC, Modem, etc for $300.

    Call me crazy, but I'd stick with the one that I can get replacement parts for.

    I can understand the draw of the i-opener, and the tuxphone, but I don't see any particular draw to the D.C.
    • You can get replacement parts for your Dreamcast...the easiest way being, get yourself a spare Dreamcast (they're what, $40?). Also, the most common hardware failure can be fixed with a simple resistor, a soldering iron, and the time needed to take apart and put it back together.
    • useful? What you want A nice fast computer. Go ahead and do that. You're missing one point with the BBA is that it lets you program the dreamcast without the coder cable which is pretty slow after a while. . 10/100 mbit compared to 56/112kb. And so if you have the DC, the linux distro, and the BBA. Why not mess around for 10 mins on it? Whats the harm? Why do you need "replacement parts"? you gonna run a server on the dc or something?
    • Apparently you didn't read the article on using a Dreamcast as a network intrusion device. just get physical access to a site you want to hack, and plug the Dreamcast into some power and LAN access and vioal it opens a backdoor the size of texas for you to exploit... and meanwhile that harmless looking dreamcast is sitting innocently in an unobtrusive corner of the building -- noone even noticed it..
      • The DC didn't make that possible, it's just one machine you can use to make it happen.

        For the price of the DC + Broadband adapter, you could have a system just slightly bigger than MIT's matchbox server, with multiple NICs, serial ports, etc.

        Besides, the DC doesn't have any writeable storage, where you could save your traffic. Additionally, you will easilly get spotted if you are sending traffic from the DC over the WAN. With a REAL computer, you could plug in a wireless adapter, and have it broadcast the interesting data at certains times of the day when you'd be there to pick it up.

        That's just a start. There's plenty of clever things to be done with a real computer that a DC can't touch.
        • True, DreamCast didn't make it possible. As the movie 'hackers' demonstrates the first tool for network intrusion is to get the people inside the building to provide you with everything you need to hack in from the outside. And I realize that the DC has limitations, However, I'd like to point out that software designed to emulate a modem, and send it out over the DC's sound would allow you to hook an eternal radio and use a radio to dialup the Dreamcast. Besides, hacking is at least partially about the coolness factor. How cool is it to be able to say you hacked someone with a dreamcast? Sure, hacking them with a PDA is kinda cool, but doesn't require as much hardcore hacking, like writing a software dialup emulator that is tolerant to possible RF interfearance.
          It takes a lot more ingenuity to get a DreamCast set up as an effective network intrusion device.
          Any script kiddie can drop off a CD-r labled 'hardcore porn' with an autorun to install a pre-configured back orifice while showing a slideshow of usenet porn. Real hacking takes skill and ingenuity.
    • The urge to play. No different to when I picked up an old Mac SE/30 with an Asante card and got Linux running on it. It's fun, for certain values of fun.

      Of course, I've long since thrown out most of the crap old systems I have, since they take up space. Couldn't be arsed in the end. Obviously the people wanting NetBSD on their Dreamcast haven't gotten bored yet.

    • Where else can one get a cheap a evaluation system for the super hitachi processor? official eval boards aren't cheap.

  • how to pre-order? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    How could I preorder a BBA? I cannot read Japanese :)

  • How many pre-orders needed for more Dreamcasts? (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Just out of interest, how many pre-orders would be needed to get another production run of Dreamcasts made?

    Maybe I am being over optimistic, but who would have said that Blender would be open-sourced a couple of years ago?
    • I don't know how many more are needed, but I think that those persons who are considering buying an Xbox under the misguided idea that doing so hurts M$ should buy a DC instead. IMHO the move by M$ to enter the game console market had more to do with Sega's decision to pull the plug on the DC than anything else. Therefore, if DC ever started up again it would continue to be more than just a thorn in the side to bgates. I will never forgive M$ for that decision, so the more ironic thing to ever have (and the scariest nightmare for M$ is a visit by an OLD GHOST that was thought to have been exorcised a long time ago). That would be :-)
  • Maybe I missed it in the translation, but I did not notice any mention of price. How much do they want for each adapter? Do they want payment in advance? Etc.
    • I'd bet it'd be safe to say it'd be more than the NIC that's already in your PC right now. It seems that, as a rule, retro projects like this cost more than current technology with worse performance.
    • Much. As noted in a post further down a thread, you can only order the adapters if you have a Japanese address; but if that's not a problem...

      "However, utilization commodity price, consumer tax, total of the postage limits under 30 ten thousand Yen. The upper limit of the utilization amount of the minority makes 5 ten thousand Yen or less 1 time concerning order."

      I think this means that in other words, CSI hasn't decided yet, but they're thinking somewhere between ¥30000 (about US$250) and ¥50000 (about US$415) after taxes... I think. It seems like a pretty wide range.

  • Am I the only one (Score:4, Informative)

    by xercist ( 161422 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @07:47AM (#4136205) Homepage
    who is subtly annoyed when they arbitrarily rename things to make them sound less complex to idiot^Waverage users?

    For example, what they sell here is a "Network Adaptor", or "Ethernet Controller" or perhaps a "NIC" - all terms everyone has accepted and uses to describe the adaptor that allows a machine to connect to an ethernet network. But let's just make up a new name, and call it a "broadband adaptor", because most people will then asociate it with their (cable|dsl) connections, even though the item in question has absolutely nothing to do with broadband. It is, in fact, the exact opposite - baseband.

    I know, I know, I'm making a big deal over a small thing, but I just had to get it out, and I feel better now that I have. If you agree, modding me up and you'll feel better too. If you disagree, modding me up will show how you can see both sides of the issue :)

    • Re:Am I the only one (Score:3, Interesting)

      by autechre ( 121980 )

      Probably because the manufacturer is a business and likes to sell things. As you pointed out, most of their target audience (home gamers) will better be able to identify the function of an item called "Broadband Adaptor" than one called "NIC". Sorry if they don't feel that people should learn basic networking terms before giving them money :)

      Remember, this wasn't named for the benefit of a bunch of geeks wanting to run Linux on the Dreamcast, it was named when the Dreamcast was still an unabandoned (by the manufacturer) gaming platform. In fact, my brother and myselves (who'll get _that_ reference?) would use this adaptor to play PSO (hopefully, this is still possible with the Dreamcast).

      (IIRC, DSL/Cable is actually narrowband or wideband according to the Bell Atlantic services chart, which I think is what you're referencing).

      • Besides which, the only applications which officially support it use it only as a broadband adapter.

        Its meant to let people go on the internet faster (in the one or two games that actually support it), its not meant to let you use that NetBSD CD you burned to mount an NFS on your main and hack around in a bash shell. Sure, you can use it for that, but most people aren't.
    • Yeah, the mutation of Broadband from "using a broad frequency band" to "supplies a lot of bandwidth" is irritating. But face it, words change. Especially when they express technical distinctions most people don't know or care about.

  • Details? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Megane ( 129182 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @07:57AM (#4136215)
    How do we make the reservations? How much do we have to pay? What about international orders?
  • The web translation services aren't being too effective. Has anyone found the order form, so that we may pre-order these things? I'm not having any luck, and I really want two of these things.

    • Re:Order form. (Score:3, Informative)

      by VargrX ( 104404 )
      has anyone found the order form, so that we may pre-order these things?

      never could read japanese, but here's the link to the pre-order page. [csi-msp.com]

      • That is what I figured. I saw it earlier. But I am not having any luck with the translation services.
        • I've sent them a polite email to the company about the possibility of an English order form. I am having trouble getting this one to work. Regardless, import companies will jump all over this one. I have no doubts that we will see plenty of these things again. :)
      • I've already pre-ordered ???? units
      • That's the *order* page, I think. They are just "thinking" about taking pre-orders. Geez, why can't they just translate it to frickin' english.
    • Two years of college level Japanese aren't quite enough to make sense of the legalese that goes, but it appears this offer is only good for residents of Japan. It says something along the lines of "We are unable to respond to overseas inquiries."

      Can anyone verify this?

    • My Japanese isn't that great, but it would seem that the order form they link to doesn't actually have the BBA on it (when I checked, anyway).

      The order form I found is here [csi-msp.com]

      It has a couple of routers, a Dreamcast karaoke box, and a couple of wireless networking products, but no BBA.

      I couldn't find anything that had a price, either.

  • Quick translation (Score:4, Informative)

    by BJH ( 11355 ) on Sunday August 25, 2002 @08:49AM (#4136358)
    OK, here's a quick translation of the page:

    ====
    Thank you for visiting our site.
    As has been reported earlier the Broadband Adapter (BBA) is no longer being manufactured, with the remaining stock sold out in July and August. However, we have received many requests for manufacturing to be restarted.
    As a result, we have decided to accept "countdown" preordering in order to do a new manufacturing run, with the run to be produced only if reservations reach 1000 by the cutoff date.
    Please follow the instructions below to preorder an adapter.
    In the event that manufacture does go ahead, it will take approximately four months from that point in time until we can deliver the adapter to you. Please take this into account when ordering.

    Start of preorder acceptance: 2002/8/26 (Mon) 13:00-
    Cutoff date: 2002/9/9 (Mon) 13:00
    Number of BBAs to be produced: 1000
    Delivery date (planned): A notice will be placed on this site as it is finalized around the end of December 2002.
    ====

    In other words, you won't be able to put your preorder in until after 1pm Monday (Japan Standard Time).

  • Can only order in Japan? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    After running the preorder page through the fish, this part came up:

    This corporation sells the general customer as the object. In addition, as for the commodity it is for the Japanese country limiting to only sale. Because it is unable to correspond to the order from the foreign country and the inquiry, acknowledgement you ask. Separate consumer tax is necessary in the price which is stated.

    E-mail: Dreamcast@csi.co.jp

    I wish they would open this up to at elast the US. I know id want to order 1 or 2 of the BBA's if they were like $50 or so, and not the $150 everybody wants on EBAY.

  • Too late for my Phantasy Star Online binge...
    I had to get a *%*^$*& dialup account PLUS Hunter License to play for 3 months last winter.
    I think we're still getting a BBA, though! We wondered why a thrid party or (this is the orginial manufacturer?) didn't make some more BBAs, they were going for $150 on Lik Sang, so clearly the dmand has been there. I wonder if the demand is still there, its almost too late for me. COME ON GAMECUBE PSO!!! I hope theres no broadband lack for the gamecube: nintendo, please don't suck.
  • I ran a webstats engine on my 14 million hits over the past four months, and noticed 23 Dreamcast hits. I figured someone had fudged their Mozilla's OS string.

    Cool.

    Jouster

  • Homebrew (Score:5, Informative)

    by The Pi-Guy ( 529892 ) <joshua+slashdot@joshu a w i se.com> on Sunday August 25, 2002 @01:29PM (#4137080) Homepage
    cadcdev.allustion.net [allusion.net]

    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dcdev/ [yahoo.com]

    b00b Dreamcast Research (no, NOT pr0n. sorry.) [boob.co.uk]

    DCEmulation. [dcemulation.com]

    ConsoleVision. [consolevision.com]

    Hanger Eleven [hangar-eleven.de]

    Have fun!
    --j0shua
    • Slightly incorrect link there (it's my site :)

      gamedev.allusion.net [allusion.net]

      and here's another for you:
      cagames.com [cagames.com]

      Honestly I can't see why people on here keep harping on and on about Linux and NetBSD on the Dreamcast, when its main use these days is for development console homebrew games. :) Of course Linux for DC is also getting some nice support that will enable this as well, but it's a bit behind the other stuff that's out.

  • There is an export company in Hong Kong that used to sell these BBA's. You can find them at Lik Sang [qksrv.net]

  • if you only want to use the BBA to play games, you should be able to figure out a way to make the DC dial into the computer, and then use the computers (broadband/LAN) access to play the games online. It won't be 'broadband' speeds but in reality DC games are optimized for 56k. I've played several DC games online and have never experienced any lag. I was also connecting over a 26.4 baud rate ;)
  • ...how does one go about pre-ordering a couple of these puppies? This is the only thing I've been wanting to get for my Dreamcast before turning it into a Linux box, but I dislike using auctions to obtain things.

    Does anyone with a better grasp of Japanese see on the site how to get such a pre-order to the company?

    Shimatta
    So much to do, so little motivation.
  • BWAHAHHA! my BBA owns. only issue is PSO didn't work with it (yeah there was a hack to use a japanese copy of the game, but fuck that!). q3a was uber easy though. everyone else had lame ass modems, so fragging them was childs play.

    ph33r.
  • This project is here [sourceforge.net]. I would really encourage any would be or newbie Linux kernel hacker to join the effort because:

    There are good people here but none of them are Linus or Alan Cox, so no fear factor.

    We don't need wizards (though they are welcome!), We just need competent people, as there are still a lot of basic device drivers to be written.

    To keep this OT I'd add that without a BBA it's a PITA sometimes - but you can use the much cheaper coders' cable to connect your DC to a PC and download kernels etc.
  • I know that pretty much noone is going to see this now, but for those who are still reading this, you can preorder your DC BBA through NCSX [ncsx.com], a reputable import gaming retailer, for only $49, less than the original BBA cost from Sega. No, I don't work for them, but it's a great way for us who can't read Japanese to get in on this deal. I just hope it hits 1000 orders...
  • anyone know a reliable japanese middleman? :>

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