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Games Entertainment

Sega Dreamcasts and LAN Access? 149

Posted by Cliff from the the-things-one-does-for-connectivity dept.
I usually don't post nameless submissions, but this one was interesting enough that I figured it did deserve some attention. We've all heard about Sega's Dreamcast and how it has the capability to connect to the internet via it's 56k modem. So how does one go about connecting systems that are within a few feet of each other? Is it just me or do some of you think that Sega dropped the ball a bit when they didn't provide the Dreamcast with a way to connect to the local LAN?
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Sega Dreamcasts and LAN Access? More

Sega Dreamcasts and LAN Access?

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  • Re:They didn't drop the ball... (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I am a supervisor of a relatively large LAN - We have scheduled "gaming times" in which game playing is encouraged. I am not a big fan of consoles mostly because I hate playing on a 4 way split on my small 26" TV. I have a LAN in my home and would be much more likely to purchase a system which would allow my friends and I to hook up our machines and play head to head on our own TVs. Even my mother has a LAN; what do you mean LANs are only for the workplace?

  • I'll wait for the PS2 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Sony's Playstation 2 will have the capabilities of adding a network card. Although many complained because Sony decided not to include a modem, I thought it was a good move to set their system up to allow for faster connections via cable modems dsl, etc.
  • The high capacity VMU and ZIP drive have already been announced (by third party manufacturers); the ethernet (10BaseT) adapter hasn't yet -- but it will be along. Soon. Next year should be great for multiplayer games on the DC.

    The modem on the DC is a modular device, plugging into the "G2" bus -- a 16bit, 25Mhz secondary bus that's also used for sound data. It's got enough bandwidth. The ethernet adapter will replace the existing modem unit (it just snaps on/off).

    Since I'm certain about these things, I have to post anonymously... please moderate up if deemed useful....
  • It has a serial port, but I'm sure it has a proprietary pinout.

    --

    1. The browser disc lets you use your own ISP, so you're connecting in through your own server.
    2. If it's anything like the Netlink, in order to play head to head, you'll need to connect directly with the other player
    3. I'm assuming the Dreamcast will use the information stored on the VMU for networked games.

    If you're on IRC, check out #saturnlist on EFnet. There's some import Dreamcast owners on there that could answer questions like this. That being said, I don't think there is any networked game so far.

  • Realize that the Dreamcast is the first gaming console to be released with a built-in modem (most other consoles had it as an option). The Sega Saturn had a modem (called the Net Link) which was only supported by a handful of games. Why? Because game companies want to program for the widest possible audience. Add on peripherals tend to never sell as well as the console itself, so very few companies program for these add-on peripherals. With the Dreamcast, the companies can assume that there is SOME internet connectivity possible on every console. The hope is that the companies will take advantage of this. As other posters have pointed out, the modem should be upgradable to an ethernet card in the near future.

    Also, be glad Sega isn't in the same mindset they used to be with modems. The Genesis had to connect with a game "service" to let people play head-to-head. The Saturn allowed you to connect directly with the other player's Saturn through the phone line.

  • Linux (Score:1)

    by Misagon ( 1135 )
    The operating system is loaded from the CD, so it is theoretically possible to port Linux to it. The question is how many NDA's you would have to break and how many CD's you would have to write during the time. I don't know if they support CD-RW, but I don't believe that they would do that willingly, they would probably want to restrict illegal copying of their games.
  • Don't forget. It's becoming more common for a family to purchase DSL or a cable modem, buy a little hub at CompUSA or Fry's and have a little network for the main PC, the old one that went to the kids and the one the wife wanted because the other two were already in use all the time.

    They may not always have the technical skill but they either have someone talk them through it or know someone that can do it for them.

  • Feel free to wait. You'll be waiting over a year. While you're waiting, I'll be playing next-gen games, and when they PS2 comes out, I'll consider getting one of those too.

    I imagine the DC modem is pretty cheap for Sega to include. It is removable, and is connected via a reasonably fast interface. I don't know exactly how fast, but it's good enough for the upcoming Zip drive, and there are strong rumours of an ethernet or cable modem adapter.

    So, the comparisom with PS2 is:
    DC PS
    Modem at first Nothing at first
    LAN/DSL/whatever upgrade LAN/DSL/whatever upgrade

    (damn, /. filters out table tags)

    --
  • To big businesses, MP3 means piracy. They don't think about the possibility of selling legit MP3s, they just see he piracy that's going on on the Net.

    Sega would alienate their retailers by being seen to support MP3.
    --
  • As far as I know, the Sega Rally developers actually dumped CE, although they are contractually obligated to put "Powered by WindowsCE" on the splash screen.
  • When designing consumer electronics such as this the goal has to be to target the majority of consumers at the minimum cost with features they'd find useful. This is a moving target: a few years ago multiplayer games meant that there were 4 joystick ports in a Nintendo 64; Now this means a modem port and possibly an optional ethernet connectivity; In a few years it will probably be at least 10 base T, more likely 100 base T.

    The vast majority of consumers only need a modem and all consumers can 'make do' with a modem. If they'd chosen to only have ethernet then the vast majority of consumers would've been unable to make use of the networked multiplayer aspect of the system. If they'd have bundled both then the price would've increased somewhat and they'd sell less units which in turn would effect the availability of games.

    I would sincerely hope that they come out with a 10 base T module and that their API was designed to be fabric agnostic. That is its just as happy to speak with another DreamCast over ethernet as it is over an analog modem connection.
  • Actually there is an option on the dream cast to ignore whether there is a dial tone or not. You just go into the settings area on the inet disk and you check "Blind Dialing"

    Vermifax
  • I beg to differ.

    There are many homes with cable modem or adsl access; which still use ethernet to connect to their devices. It would make MUCH more logical sense to have an ethernet LAN device than a built in ADSL modem or Cable modem since then the device can be used for all types of lan connections.. (cable,ADSL,Dorm,office/etc).

    There are some gamers out there that would subscribe to cable-modem access or adsl if it meant getting better pings.

    There are also many current adsl/cable subscribers with existing accounts who would be glad to pay the extra $5 for an ip for the dc since they already have the cablemodem service.

    If there is a lan interface (probably using dhcp, hopefully there would be some way to set a static ip) for an internal type network...

    The question is, when the dc network is availible, will it become another battle.net {overloaded and unstable at times, luckily there is an alternative to battle.net; http://www.fsgs.com/; especially if you want to play against ppl you know, or for a local ISP to run}


  • You can now easily find USB network cards for ~$50-$80. The question is will there be "drivers" for them for the PSX2?

    PCMCIA network cards are still a little more expensive... but anyone w/ a laptop already probably already has a pcmcia network card that they can plop into the PSX2 when it becomes availible. Same q re: "drivers"...

    I can see advantages and disadvantages for both methods... The thing is... neither product can network yet... so gotta wait a while longer...


  • One needs to remeber.. The "T1" ports on the back of Cisco routers are also "serial" ports... Of course they also need a CSU/DSU... but still....


  • Probably not be too difficult. OpenBSD [openbsd.org] has already ported [slashdot.org] to the Sega Dreamcast.
  • I tihnk you understate how far along NetBSD is. For instance, on the Mac/m68k, Mac/ppc, and Intel ports, NetBSD is pretty freaking cool and does the job quite well. I think FreeBSD is much farther along on the x86, but then again, that is why I run FreeBSD on my x86 and NetBSD on my Macs.

    Another issues is the fact that NetBSD presents a clean and consistant architecture and interface between platforms whereas Slackware and Red Hat don't even look the same on an i386. :)

    Anyway, last I heard, the status was "booting" but then again, that is farther along that most other OSes are for the
  • Sega Rally?

    Dunno, we certainly didn't use it for Red Dog. Real games developers go straight for the metal...;)

    ...at least when it comes to rendering anyway...

  • Re:Why? (Score:1)

    by jtn ( 6204 )
    Free clue-pon: 56K has not been a "standard" for a couple years now. The V.90 standard is fairly new, and not all RAS vendors even implement it the same way. Quite honestly, 56K over analog phone lines is a bad hack at best. It's best to put your money into a technology that isn't straining a medium that wasn't even designed for it like xDSL or some sort of wireless connection.
  • Most games may not be limited by bandwidth, but latency is a huge issue for them! You seem to be implying that I'll get the same game play experience playing Q3 over a 28.8 modem as I do on my school's 100baseT LAN, which is not true.

    Modems introduce all kinds of horrible latency (especially with compression and all that crap turned on) and just plain suck for gaming.
  • The unit is modular enough to replace with just about any kind of network-access device. One of the chief reasons of modularizing the unit was to allow cable and DSL providers to offer a Dreamcast access unit for their service. This unit would definitely be an ethernet interface.

    Therefore, I don't see how this eliminates a LAN-based solution. I actually expect the cable modem and DSL modules to be ethernet interfaces. The modems are only reachable via ethernet, anyway -- for example, my cable modem sits on the network. It doesn't connect directly with anything. Surely the Dreamcast cable/DSL access packages will replace the 56k modem with an ethernet interface.

    You didn't expect the cable/DSL modems to actually plug directly into the Dreamcast, did you? Have you seen the power and thermal requirements of those devices?

    Kris

    Kriston J. Rehberg
    http://kriston.net/ [kriston.net]

  • http://www.raite.com.tw/eproduct/e715.htm [raite.com.tw]

    This is a player that plays nearly every format imaginable. DVD 1.0, VideoCD 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0, Super-VideoCD (MPEG 2 on a normal CD), CDDA, and MP3. The format of the discs is ISO9660. Of course, discs can be recorded with Joliet or Rock Ridge extentions, but you can't see the long filenames. Filenames can be in either Big5 (Chinese) or English. The structure consists of one level deep directories with any number of MP3 files inside each directory.

    ~GoRK
  • As of late Sept, Videogames.com was reporting that no game *released* was based off CE. I had to assume this to be US because I do not follow Japan closely. I did not know Rally2 was out yet. In either event, I wasn't speculating as I believe Gamespot also reported a similar article. (btw, in replying to this, I wanted to show the Gamespot URL, but their search servers appear to be uncooperative.)

    Personally, I agree that if (1) Sega makes a module that at least adds either USB or PCMCIA or Ethernet and (2) Guarantees that CE becomes the platform for the majority of games. This will succeed since gamemakers and Sega would not have to worry about drivers...CE would handle that. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately), I will not give Sega a chance after being burned with the Genesis, SegaCD, 32X and Saturn...

    Jesse
  • I find it humorous to read the USENET concerning the religious wars between the Dreamcast and the upcoming PSX2. Seems that, along with being a prime supporter of WindowsCE (which, btw, has yet to be used for a DC game) they took the Microsoft approach to things and made their product upgradeable...because it isn't quite good enough from the start! Some of these DC owners bemoan the PSX2 specs saying that Sony dropped the ball in not including a modem with the PSX2...all Sony could figure out was putting PCMCIA slots and USB ports. Man, that thing will never be expandable.

  • Yes, somewhat faster then a modem but still a ton slower then a 10baseT network

    Obviously, but I think the point here is that we're talking about the Dreamcast. Since game designers will write with the 56k modem in mind, a null modem connection would be very adequate.
  • What about Bluetooth/IRdA??? Just my A$0.02
    - NeuralAbyss

    ~^~~~^~~~^~~~^~~~^~~~~^^^~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
    Real programmers don't comment their code.

  • the modem pops off the back... just rig a network card to fit in!! haha, yea right!!! I guess dialup is the only way... and that crappy cd they have for using the internet... I wonder how they will do multi-player games.
  • maybe i'm confusing dreamcast with playstation2, but i seem to remember one or the other having firewire (aka iLink) on board.

    while it isn't exactly 10/100bT for the dorm room LAN, it should be easy enough to connect two machines via firewire to make a spanking fast lan.

    the trouble, of course, is having the two machines in physical proximity, as well as the two TVs...
  • You'd still need to bring a telly with your dreamcast, though, and after having had my PSX and
    computer wired to my 30" TV and surround sound, the thought of going down to an 18" portable with poxy speakers to take to a LAN party doesn't really thrill me :)
    (When was the last time you tried moving a large 30" tv?)

    IMHO, you're better off with PC's and hi-definition 17" monitor at a LAN party. Especially for Homeworld.
  • I have a dreamcast, you can use any service provider you want (sega doesn't have one) It comes with software to install att worldnet but you don't have to and they walk you through setting up via any provider. Sega OWNS HEAT [heat.net] and this is where we may end up seeing game matching. But like M$ zone the play is primarily free. [zone.com]
  • In the consumer electronics business (at least in the U.S.), there are some well known "sweet spots" in the price spectrum. They're mostly multiples of $100. Hit these price points, and you'll encourage impulse buys by various kinds of consumers in various circumstances. The most well known price points are $100, $300, $500, and $700. (Think what price a VCR, or a fairly big screen TV, or a camcorder had to hit before you considered buying one.)

    $700 PCs are a huge hit. WebTV seems stuck at $500, and it's anything but taking the market by storm. 3DO proved conclusively that the $500 price point is too high for game consoles.

    Nintendo and Sony have found a good price point at $200 for game consoles. Sega had to hit that point.

    Households with home LANS or cable modems, almost by definition, live higher on the price curve. It makes sense for Sega to offer an upgrade kit, or a higher priced (because they can get away with it) version, for that market segment. But Sega shouldn't blow the price point for the majority of their customer base.

    (I worked on four different consumer telecommunications services from 1992 to 1998. I saw lots of products miss the price points, even though we knew better.)-:
  • I reckon that with Apple now including the option the AirPort with their computers, that we will start seeing more people wanting wirless connectivity with their PCs. So eventually I would not be surprised if wireless console networks become normal. If you need it expand over the phone line then all you need is base station.

    Thats's my 5 euro cents worth
  • I think I heard about a way to hook the thing up to that new neo-geo pocket? Or maybe I was confused. The neo-geo cables look a lot like USB to me. Not that I own any of these systems, I'm poor.
    _Joshewah_
  • Sorry to burst your imaginery world, but it uses Windows CE. Only thing it has on Windows 9x/NT, is that it has a smaller footprint (Ye gads! A MS OS with small footprint?! IMPOSSIBLE!!)
  • uh, not true with ISDN or ADSL, these are one to one connections, but true with cable, which is a one to many..
  • Someone hack out the 'G2' bus on that thing,
    and I'll design a Lan interface :) Of course,
    finding someone interested in manufacturering
    them would be another story alltogether :)

    Looking at the Trisignal sight, it appears they
    have something called a T-Soft Modem, which might
    be (with some changes?) what the DC uses. the T-Soft Modem uses AT command set, as well as their own proprietary command set and comes w/ an API for porting stuff.. sounds like something the DC would use eh?

    So could maybe make a small plugin to replace the
    modem that would have a Lan interface & uP that would interpret the AT commands and pretend to connect to an ISP so the DC would talk to the net.. and hence its game place.. :)
  • I was under the impression that null modem cables run up to the maximum speed between the two computers, i.e. 115kbps.

    Thats true, but compare it to 10mbps ethernet (yeah, I know, 2mbps in practice), or 100mbps, or gigabit over fiber, and the speed difference is indeed noticable!..... oh yeah, a few hundred of these puppies in a beowulf cluster running across gigabit fiber... oh.. (Okay, so I really had something to contribute, but lost my train of thought at the end... :smile:...)
  • The modem is removable. I hope that sega is working on a 10/100 ethernet adapter for the dreamcast. I think it was horribly short sighted to not have this as an availabe add on at release. I have been using a cable modem for over two years, and have no plans to go back to a modem.
  • You know, the thing that really gets me though, is that it's MUCH cheaper to build a 10baseT ethernet transciever into a device than it is to implement a modem.
    (cheap 56k modem: $90, 10Mbps generic ethernet: $19.95)

  • Indeed. Best of luck getting the Dreamcast modem to ignore dialtone, though, even if it is willing to work across an unpowered line (which is troublesome, in my experience...).
  • Hmm. Null modem cables were the bomb, but they're a bit slow these days

    I was under the impression that null modem cables run up to the maximum speed between the two computers, i.e. 115kbps.
  • The sega API has access to the modem as well, I'd wager. the CE side has easier access to it, that's all.

    I'm just hoping the games are designed with abstraction built on chip on the modem to run "automagically" and connect. If they need driver X and you try to play an older game on it, well, it'll be sosdd.
  • Most PC's you see in the store's and on websites don't come with a network card factory installed..

    Why would a DC need a network card? just dialup and play.. if you can afford DSL, and a DC you can probably afford the ~20 bucks a month for a phone line.. as most games aren't limited by bandwidth, and you probably don't need leach access on a DC..

    for surfing, it may work pretty good to have an ethernet, but how well can it download at those rates and can the lil os handle it?

  • same goes for cable modems and dsl.. in most urban and alot of suburban areas, so many people are leaching mp3's running servers, downloading movies and flooding the bandwidth, that alot of times, the latency is quicker on a 56k modem or isdn device then dsl or cable access is..
  • Hmm. Null modem cables were the bomb...

    No, they weren't a "bomb." They actually worked very well.

    He said "the Bomb", not that null cables were "a" bomb, understandable mistake if english is not your primary language (or even if it is ;-)

    I have a dreamcast and surfing on the web is painfully slow and difficult, even at 40+ Kbs/sec. Having it connected to DSL/cable/T1 may speed it up, but I think alot of the problem lies in the software it shipped with (at least for web browsing)
    just my 2c


  • It's like being redundant over and over again!
  • > I really, really, really hope Sega wasn't stupid enough to hard wire the modem on the motherboard.

    FYI, The modem on the Dreamcast is a removable pack on the side of the main unit.

    Here in the UK they're releasing the DreamCast with a 33.6 modem initially, with an upgrade planned in the near future.
  • The phone line simulator is only needed if the modems don't have a way to ignore the missing dialtone, and if the modems do not work on a bare wire.
  • From what I have read CE is not even on the machine itself, the CE runtimes come on the same disc as the game.

  • AS far as I know, it's not really CE based. What you can do however is have CE embedded on the games CE, which will be loaded when the games starts. You can choose to stick wuith the Dreamcast's base OS if you want.

    Of course it's a damned good idea that, as the dreamcast CE has some DirectX built in, so porting PC games is easier.

  • emulation.
    Hardware Abstraction Layer.
    Dreamcast.
    BSD port.
    BEOS.
    PPC port.
    Sheepshearer.
    VMWare.
    WINE.
    get my drift?
  • This isn't totally applicable to the article, but just for all those who say the Dreamcast is doomed, I'll provide a link to this [bbc.co.uk] BBC article, which claims that Dreamcast sales in England were at £9m in the first few minutes.

    The article also says they had £8.5m in preorders.

    I'm sure we'll be able to find first day sales statistics soon enough.

    ------
  • But there will be online gaming by next year. You can already get on the net with it, and from what I've heard, you can download a Sonic add on pack thing already. Sure, at the moment there isn't any network, but that isn't to say there won't be one.
  • ... for the near future.

    One of the first is the ability to connect via DSL or Cable Modem.

    First and foremost, the 10Mb Network Pluggable module is in the works. This make better sense since I don't know of anyone with internal cable modems or DSL routers.




    ChozSun [e-mail] [mailto]
  • I find it hard to beleive that Sega wouldn't provide some sort of support for this type of setup because it's so common and technically pretty trivial.
    I suspect the real problem won't be the communications, but that the Dreamcast games will not come with Server software - that will be sold separately to ISPs (at a vastly inflated price) or bundled with a contract agreement that entitles the ISP to support Dreamcast connections. Of course, this could well be NT or UNIX server software, as those machines are more likely to be efficent running as a server than a Dreamcast is (I can't see many ISPs setting up racks of Dreamcasts to run their game servers, for some reason)
    --
  • FYI I haven't yet played a game on that thing. They handed me the modem and told me to take it apart. (that's what i get for being former hardware tech)I merely stated what i had found. I apologize for not researching it completely.
  • I work tech support for an ISP, and when the dreamcast first came out we "convinced" our pres. to buy us one (for testing purposes, of course ;> ). Being the techs we are, we promptly opened the modem up to see what it was. Much to our chagrin, the main chip as made by a Rockwell subsidiary. Thus making the modem roughly equivalent to an HCF type modem. For those not familiar, the HCF is basically a WINmodem. (blech!) Thus as any ISP tech knows, it's often a pain in the ass making it work with some ISP hardware. NOw in a PC, you can adjust settings and add init strings to make the hardware play nice. the dreamcast doesn't have this capability, so if the modem won't connect good to yer ISP, there aint a damn thing you can do about it except shell out that extra dough to use their own provider.
    I would agree that neglecting the networking side, and using cheap modem products, has definitely cost the dreamcast business.

    Now the Playstation 2.... that's a different story.. *DROOL!*
  • Right - there's an API for developing games using WinCE - I'm sure it's pretty much there to make ports of PC games a lot less work, I'll be interested to see if Half-Life will work with PC deathmatches - could be fun.
  • Working retail has its perks. Sega is _considering_ putting out an ethernet card (10BaseT) No word on Cat5/Coax, and if I recall a street date est of mid 2000, but still...
  • I really don't like the idea of copy-protection by country coding. What happens if I move? Will I have to buy new software for all my equpment? Totally lame.
  • >The only other problem is finding enough TV's to
    >support the networked DCs.

    or just have several DCs and one TV for a ....

    (wait for it)

    ...BeoCast!

  • How about college campuses and boarding schools? I know plenty of people who use Playstations around here because it's easier to have a $1000 computer to do work and web browsing on and a $300 console + TV setup than to keep a computer capable of playing cutting-edge games.

  • I do not know the specifics of the phone line simlator from viking, but BBS Telecom (www.bbstelecom.com) sells a really neat SOHO phone swith that lets you mux 16 standard analog phones into four telco lines for about $900. I set one of these things up in a previous geek house and they are tres cool.

    One of these could easily be used along with a bank of 16 modems on a Linux box to allow up to 16 dreamquests to talk to each other. You could even uplink them all together over a single high-speed uplink (cable modem, etc.) to the public net. It's not cheap (probably about $200-$300 per port) but it will work. I think I smell a business opportunity for someone!

    Anyone know when we're going to see an ethernet adapter for the dreamquest? ;-)

    -p.

  • Hmm. Null modem cables were the bomb, but they're a bit slow these days. Myself, everything in my room is done either with a small hub and short patch cables, or with crossover cables for small stuff. Anything slower than 10MBit just doesn't cut it realistically these days.

    Or I could just be a speed freak. I miss my 300 baud modems. =-)

  • You'll be waiting quite a while for a system that will only be a modest improvement over the Dreamcast due to the graphic limitations of most television sets.

    Dreamcast has already solidified itself as the #1 or #2 next gen system. The "real" fight is going to be Nintendo vs. PS2 next Christmas. Buy the wrong system and you're stuck.

    So many developers are already developing DC games, the PS2 won't make a significant dent in DC marketshare.

  • Incase any of yall didn't notice, the modem is removable for future networking solutions. In the little brosure that came with the dreamcast, it had mentions of cable modems/dsl/etc. i certainly wouldn't mind taking on one of my friends head to head on blitz (on different tv's mind you), or quite possibly Quake3. To tell you guys the truth, even before i plugged in my dreamcast the first day i got it, i took out the modem and thought, "Wow, this is kinda cool, when is the lan connection comming out?" This machine was designed to be fully upgradable (now we just need gigabyte disk writers).


    -Tim
  • ...as are many of the houses in my neighborhood. It was wired throughout with Cap5 as part of its construction (the phone lines in the house are actually some of the Cap5 wires, so it's very thorough). It's becoming more common in the west (I'm in Utah, and I bet you'd see it even more in California).
  • The cable companies that supply the cable internet connection may have a problem with people connecting their Non Windows 98 boxes to the cable modem. They seem to have a fit if you say you're going to connect your Linux box up to the cable modem - (well you can do it but "NO SUPPORT FOR YOU!!!!"). Since Dreamcast doesn't run on windows (at least, God I hope it doesn't) are they going to tell the teenage boys who just want to play their games that they can't do it even though Sega says they can? Oh yeah and if you have to have a login program to log onto the cable network (RR used to do this in my area, but quit, but I know they still do it in other areas) that won't work anyways. Sega's going to have to do some major dealing to get it to work with all the cable providers.
  • Why are they releasing the Dreamcast in the UK with a 33.6 modem "initially"?? 56k has been a standard for the past couple years now, and they're not all that expensive. That just doesn't quite make sense to me.
  • You would want to link 2 together to display on different tv's!!

    I for one dont want 4 people dividing up a 19-25 inch TV during a race game.... split it to more TV's and display space is no longer a problem.....
  • I've read up on this a lot (seeing how I now longer own a single modem - can't stand those things) The Dreamcast will have ethernet around the same time as the Quake3Arena launch for the Dreamcast. If anyone has read the first issue of DCM (DreamCast Magazine) you'd know what I'm talking about. I just can't wait to take my Dreamcast to the next big q3 LAN party and ask, "May I borrow your TV?" :-)

    Beguile
  • That is of course if the Nintendo system isn't delayed..... They have a history of delaying. It's a battle of mindshare. Between Sega and Sony.
  • I remember opening up a Pippin (the failed mac game console), and making the cable from the motherboard to the cd player just a tad bit longer, enough to support an extra hard disk...

    But then again, that was scsi...

    -John
  • I've never used a Dreamcast for more than five minutes in a local Wal-Mart, so I may be wrong, but...
    About 3 months ago Wired had a 2 page spread on the dreamcast, exposing all the guts of the system. The part that really caught my eye was the 'modular modem'. According to Wired, this thing was designed to be easily upgradeable to a proprietary cable modem, or something along those lines. Now, this is Sega we're talking about, so I really don't expect them to support it (remember that port in the bottom of old Nintendo's?), but it sounds feasible that a NIC of some kind could be designed for use in that port.

  • There is a project under way which is porting Openbsd to the hitachi's sh4 processor, which is used by the dreamcast. The Effort [softrare.com] is concentrated here and on the mailing list(see above link). There is also a nice technical info page for those interested in Dreamcast Specs here [canadawired.com].
    --Isaac
  • "Anyone who has been around more than two years know that modem tech changes practically every six months"

    Hmm, how long has it been since standard modem technology changed? What's it been, a year and a half or two years since 56k came out. Regular modem technology has pretty much been the same for quite some time, with no innovations in sight. So if all they want to support is POTS then well, as far as things look now, 56k is a pretty safe choice. Sure, broadband solutions will eventually take over completely, but the claim that momdem technology changes every six months is just no longer true. Maybe there will be some breakthrough in a while, but I have heard of nothing new in the works. 56k is already above (I think) what was supposed to be the theoretical limit that could be squeezed through the somewhat poor quality lines that are our telephone service.
  • Yeah you're right... on one modem set it to ignore dialtone (ATX1) and "dial" the other modem with ATD (no number required). And on the other modem type ATA for answer and they should connect. Fun :)
  • Get a linux box with enough serial ports, recompile the kernel with ip forwarding, and write up your chat file. chances are that you'll need to use bind to run an internal nameserver to give the dreamcasts a way to get ip numbers [cos they wont have host files].
    This is assuming of course that you can connect dreamcasts to serial ports.
  • ... maybe you techs should stop playing games on that DC the boss bough you and do your job.

    Perhaps you'd notice that the Dreamcast gives you a field you can use for additional init strings if needed when you set up your ISP account. And that this field is saved along with all the other account info.

    Might I suggest you read the manual, too.
  • The DC modem is a module; the opportunity exists to attach other devices.

    Sega haven't exactly made this fact a secret. Why not check out a DC-related web site (try www.planetdreamcast.com) before theorising about what a DC actually is?
    --
  • I was under the impression that null modem cables run up to the maximum speed between the two computers, i.e. 115kbps.

    Yes, somewhat faster then a modem but still a ton slower then a 10baseT network.

    Does anyone know if the Dreamcast even supports null-modem connections?

    -Brent
    --
  • I don't have a modem, but from the picture of the Dreamcast "builtin" modem at http://www.sega.com/console/index.shtml is seems clear to me that it probably connects to a high speed serial port. It would be quite easy to develop something that interfaced to ethernet instead of a phone jack.

    It wouldn't surprise me if there was something in the works at sega to put Dreamcasts on the LAN, but it's probably of secondary importance to them.
  • I don't have my DC in front of me so I'll have to check it when I get home, but I could have sworn I saw a "serial link" port on the back of mine. If it DOES in fact have a serial port, why not use simple null modem connection to link 2 DC's together?

    Yes this doesn't help for more than 2 but it's a start.

    And I could not agree more about the DC's lack of LAN style connectivity, it would be GREAT to be able to replace the modem module with a 10mbps Ethernet module. The only other problem is finding enough TV's to support the networked DCs.

    Getting a LAN party for PCs together is rather easy, but I don't think too many people will be packing up their DC AND 32" TV to go play Sonic Deathmatch.

    Still, I'd love to see it as an option.
  • The whole reason the DC came with a regular phone modem is because it has the biggest established user base. Lowest Common Denominator. But, as some people have posted in threads above mine, Sega is going to release an ethernet adapter plug-in type thing, so it all works out in the end. As a cable modem user, I am a little bit mad I can't use it right out of the box, but I understand where Sega is coming from. On another note though, it the begining of the "article" it asks how to connect two systems together. I'm not even sure why you would want to do that, that's why there is 4 controller ports on the front. But if you did anyway, the PSX already has a thing that allows you to connect to PSX's together. So I guess it wouldn't be too hard for the DC to do the same thing if Sega really wanted them to do that.

  • CE.... (Score:2)

    by m3000 ( 46427 )
    And for the final time, THE DC DOES NOT HAVE WINDOWS CE AS IT'S ONLY OS!!! Every single time a DC story is ever posted on /., tons of ignorant people who hear the word Microsoft automatically think, without even bothering to check, that it means it always run's CE and doesn't/can't run anything else. CE is just one OS that can be used, the developer picks which one he uses. Sega also has their own OS that a developer could also use. It depends entirely on the game what OS it uses. Please get your facts straight before you start spewing off FUD.
  • Yeah... and do you remember when you'd have everything all up and working perfectly, and then those goddamned pesky dinosaurs would come stomping through the place and wreck everything? That used to really piss me off. (grin)
  • I used to set up two modems on two different PCs just a regular phone cable in between way back when there was just Doom. As I remember I had to pass some particularly cryptic AT-commands to the modems on each side, but it worked. I find it hard to beleive that Sega wouldn't provide some sort of support for this type of setup because it's so common and technically pretty trivial.

    Of course it's not anywhere near as cool as having the systems set up on a LAN, but it's workable.

  • Sega does have to make a choice between cable and DSL, though.. I don't have cable, so I'm not sure how many cable modems out there have Ethernet hookups. Also worrying are those people who are now buying DSL modems on a card instead of an external modem with Ethernet jack.

    To be honest, perhaps the most worrying of all to me is if they rig (is this possible at all? it might be...) it to not support hubs or PC NICs, only DSL/cable/etc, or if they did a DSL setup but gave special preference to people going through provider X...

    Also keep in mind they have more opportunities for profit in their modem stuff than in opening their servers to ethernet hookup (and thus possibly to remote attacks). You can't ping flood a Dreamcast or the server it's playing on - do they want that? (And, on a more amusing note, do we want to introduce to Dreamcat the plague upon gaming society that is LPB whining? =D)

    One thing is for sure, if the modem IS soldered on, the resulting controversy could just be a fatal kick in the jimmy, after the bad ROM fiasco.

  • BAFH! (Score:2)

    by deefer ( 82630 )
    I'm a LAN admin myself, and I'd rather shoot any one of my users in the head...
    Boy, I'm damn glad I don't have to call you to reset my password!!! ;)

  • "Just think about where most LANs exist, in the workplace. How many workplaces do you think would allow Sega machines to be plugged into the LAN at the office?"

    GRRR... you are obviously an admin. As Director of Information Technology for a rather decent sized company I will tell you that it has been my experience that LAN games relieve stress in the work place. They also tend to form a friendly and competitive bond between the people in your department. I allow scheduled LAN games during the week as long as work is completed and projects are on schedule. Running an IT department is like teaching elementary students with extremely high IQs. If we finish this assignment I will give you an extra five minutes at recess, ooh... ah. No not really, running an IT department is actually about taking a bunch anti-social computer nerds and give them a place to work were they feel comfortable and if LAN games keeps them productive and happy then so be it.

    "I'm a LAN admin myself, and I'd rather shoot any one of my users in the head rather than allow them to play games on my LAN. "

    By the way it is rather hard to imagine that you are only an admin with social skills such as these. Learn to lighten up and you'll go farther in your courier and in life.

    Performance issues:
    Let me tell you a little something, if you are running on 100BT Ethernet or better on your network it shouldn't matter that they are playing games. No one is going to be able to tell the difference except you and whoever is monitoring LAN traffic if anyone does that on your network.

    GAMES PLAYED ON OUR LAN:

    Quake II, Batlezone, Commanche 3, Longbow II, Dark Reign, CNC, and much more. The ones I listed were my favorites back when I had a chance to regularly join in.

    "Stupidity is a virus not a virtue, if infected please kill it."

  • Sega does have to make a choice between cable and DSL, though.

    I don't think this is the case. I have seen three different brands of cable modem and two different brands of DSL modems and both have plain 10Base-T on the back. The new cable modems @Home is using in Georgia have dual coaxial input and a 10/100 connection.

    I don't have cable, so I'm not sure how many cable modems out there have Ethernet hookups.

    I'm willing to bet all of them, since it makes little sense to invent new technology when 10BaseT ethernet is just so dirt cheap. Even if the cable modem doesn't need that much speed it's still much cheaper to get an ethernet card than rig some new proprietary connection. Although, some of the newer Motorola modems are using a USB connection. This is clearly not the option for techies since you can no longer connect to a hub and you are onyl supported with Win98.

    Also worrying are those people who are now buying DSL modems on a card instead of an external modem with Ethernet jack.

    Again, this isn't a move for techies since they will want the high speed connection to go to more than one computer (via a hub). Or, this is for techies who are smart enought to make that one computer the proxy/NAT machine and then put a plain ol' 10BaseT to a hub that has the other boxes (including the hypothetical high-speed DreamCast).

    If you have an ethernet card on something, then by definition it support a hub...since the hardware is the same, just some connections (card to card or hub to hub) require a crossover. Assuming there was a switch to crossover or not (like on most hubs) this would be find.

    I maintain that it would be way easy to ping or flood a Dreamcast connection if they went anywhere but a private network. Once I have the IP, it is maybe ten seconds work to get rid of some puny modem connection.

    Or were you talking about ping flooding from the
    DreamCasts? How the hell would you do that without access to the operating system?

    Just my thoughts...

    - JoeShmoe

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
  • Ahh... connecting two modems... I remember those days.

    I knew of AT commands to ignore the lack of dial-tone, but I was too lazy to consult the manual and find these cryptic AT commands. Instead, I plugged in a phone in the dialing modem, and before hitting enter after ATDT9 (arbitrary number) I began a sound "DOOOOOOOOO" in the phone mouthpiece. It dialed, then I unplugged the phone, plugged it into the other modem and hit ATA =)

  • Sega DREAMCAST != Windows CE (Score:3)

    by torpor ( 458 ) <ibisum@@@gmail...com> on Thursday October 14, 1999 @12:28AM (#1615501) Homepage Journal
    I wish my fellow Linux geeks would get this message: THERE ARE CURRENTLY *NO* DREAMCAST GAMES AVAILABLE WHICH USE THE WINDOWS CE OS. ALL CURRENT DREAMCAST GAMES USE SEGA'S OWN KERNEL.

    The reason: most pro game development houses found that the performance and other restrictions in Windows CE were simply unacceptable, and opted for the good ol' safe and proven iTron-based SEGA Kernel...

    You know, if more of us anti-MS zealots knew this, maybe the Dreamcast would be viewed a bit more favourably as the games machine that proved WinCE isn't up to the task.

  • ethernet for dreamcast (Score:3)

    by sweetooth ( 21075 ) on Wednesday October 13, 1999 @09:52PM (#1615502) Homepage
    Here [gaming-age.com] is a breif post on rumors of ethernet for the dreamcast.

  • What about high-speed Internet? (Score:3)

    by JoeShmoe ( 90109 ) <askjoeshmoe@hotmail.com> on Wednesday October 13, 1999 @09:13PM (#1615503)
    Isn't is just as short-signed to ignore the number of homes that have cable modems or DSL and would like to run 10Mbit connection to that puppy?

    I'm hoping (for Sega's sake) that they are working on an addon module to enable a good ol' 10Base-T (or maybe even 10/100) connection.

    Of course, if they simply upgraded the modem (by swapping out the part) to support home networking that would be a great solutions. Home networking is basically DSL connectivity within a household, something computer makers like Compaq are already doing.

    I really, really, really hope Sega wasn't stupid enough to hard wire the modem on the motherboard. Anyone who has been around more than two years know that modem tech changes practically every six months, and I sure hope the Dreamcast has a long lifespan than that.

    I don't even have a phone line in one of my residences because my cell phone is my primary phone and the residence has a cable modem. This means I can't even get digital cable service because the stupid GE box requires a regular phone line! (duh? TCI spend how many millions to enable two-way communication over their cable network, then decides on a cable box supplier that uses phone lines).

    I also couldn't use DIVX, but I don't consider that much of a problem at all. =)

    Just my thoughts...

    - JoeShmoe

    -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

  • Ethernet adapter (Score:4)

    by Greg Hewgill ( 618 ) <greg@hewgill.com> on Wednesday October 13, 1999 @09:34PM (#1615504) Homepage
    Couple of stories to ponder, compliments of google:

    http://www.gaming-age.com/ne ws2/november98/111998e.htm [gaming-age.com]
    http://www.gamenfo.com/Dreamcast/dr eamcast.html [gamenfo.com] (ick, apologies in advance for the popup)

    The 56k modem is in a pluggable module, so evidently Sega designed for this.

  • Observations (Score:5)

    by drwiii ( 434 ) on Thursday October 14, 1999 @02:23AM (#1615505) Homepage
    After cracking it open (figuratively speaking of course) the DC modem appears to use only about 1/3 of the pins available to it on the "expansion" port. As a sidenote, the only visible chips on the board appear to be a Rockwell R6785-19 chipset and a custom Sega chip, model number 315-6137.

    There is a serial port on the back of the console, but that seems to be better placed or suited for unit-to-unit connections rather than anything high speed (like ethernet).

    More DC tidbits: drwiii Stupidly Disassembles his Dreamcast [min.net]

    --

  • The list of items rumoured to be in development for the Dreamcast include:

    - Ethernet adapter
    - Zip disk system
    - DVD Player add-on
    - USB port (part of the Zip addon)
    - Higher capacity VMU's
    - Serial link cable

    I'd say that its just too soon for Sega to release this stuff - makes more sense to me that they'd wait for more multi-player games to be released that require things like the network adapter before actually releasing it.

    The built-in 56k modem actually works quite well, and combined with the Sega keyboard it makes web browsing quite simple. I wish we had a trackball or mouse accessory though - I haven't heard of one being developed, and I try to stay on top of things like this.

    So far, my guess is that there just aren't enough Dreamcast-owning people who *HAVE A NEED* for an ethernet adapter right now to justify the huge ramp-up production costs... but I bet that we will see this adapter soon.

    Maybe within the next few months, when a few choice game software developers also release some good multiplayer games for the Dreamcast system this Christmas as well...

    Now, the DC + Keyboard + eth0 + trackball mouse combo would be quite a killer setup, especially if the total cost were less than $300 (for all of it, including the DC). This would make for a very nice web-based data entry system for quite a few of my clients, games-machine capabilities aside...

    j.

  • A "solution" (Score:5)

    by adolf ( 21054 ) <flodadolf@gmail.com> on Wednesday October 13, 1999 @10:07PM (#1615507) Journal
    It's not too hard to make the Dreamcast talk TCP/IP over the network of your choice.

    Items required:
    1 Dreamcast
    1 Linux box with reasonably quick modem
    2 RJ-11 telephone patch cords
    1 network
    1 phone line simulator [vikingelectronics.com] from Viking

    Make PPP dialins work on linux box. Make PPP dialouts work on Dreamcast. Connect linux box to line simulator, connect line simulator to Dreamcast. Execute whatever sequence of button-pushage and disc-swappage required to initiate a call to the remote (several feet away) linux box. Enjoy.

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