I have an idea about dreamcast LOOK AT ME!!!

lackofsense · Post by **lackofsense** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 3:08 pm

could it be possible for memory expansion through the modem slot in the side of the dreamcast. what is the speed of that slot?
This is simply serious curiousity.
Although it may lead to something of a project.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 3:24 pm

HDD conceivably, but not RAM.

FETUS · Post by **FETUS** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 5:48 pm

iirc they used that slot for the dc zip drive & karaoke player so I don't see why a hard drive wouldn't work.

nevets934 · Post by **nevets934** » Tue Nov 23, 2004 8:05 pm

one of the people who made feet of fury already made a hard drive adapter

Prophet][ · Post by **Prophet][** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 2:50 am

indeed, but thier is little software for it. And lackofsense you live upto your name, next time I would recomend the "search" feature of this forum as this has been brought up before. And your naming of topics has much to be desired

WhtCastle · Post by **WhtCastle** » Wed Nov 24, 2004 3:07 am

Prophet][ wrote:indeed, but thier is little software for it. And lackofsense you live upto your name, next time I would recomend the "search" feature of this forum as this has been brought up before. And your naming of topics has much to be desired

Pre-pwned.

Disheveled DrFreeze · Wed Nov 24, 2004 10:52 am

some japs built an IDE controller for the expansion slot iirc, but they never released the schematics

i believe the DC exp slot has a lot in common with the ISA bus, and in college, i do have a project about desining an isa card, but i dont see what the point would be in making one, after all, there isnt any software capable of using it, the ISA bus is kinda slow, so running games from a hdd wouldnt work well either, even if you were able to program the software to use the hdd

Lyris · Post by **Lyris** » Sun Nov 28, 2004 11:43 am

FETUS wrote:iirc they used that slot for the dc zip drive & karaoke player so I don't see why a hard drive wouldn't work.

I think the Karaoke unit used the Serial port. The only other thing that I know of going into the Extension/Expansion slot was the Broadband Adapter.

Prophet][ · Post by **Prophet][** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 6:13 am

DrFreeze wrote:some japs built an IDE controller for the expansion slot iirc, but they never released the schematics

I have the schematics on my PC, got them off Dan I think.

Alexvrb · Post by **Alexvrb** » Mon Nov 29, 2004 3:08 pm

The bus is capable of speeds that are good enough for a HD, and you could use cheap SDRAM for temporary storage, but obviously only at like 40 or so MB/sec. Maybe good enough to swap for large ROMs. But nobody has built anything that has been able to really take advantage of it.

Post by **Quzar** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 1:03 am

Lyris wrote:
FETUS wrote:iirc they used that slot for the dc zip drive & karaoke player so I don't see why a hard drive wouldn't work.
I think the Karaoke unit used the Serial port. The only other thing that I know of going into the Extension/Expansion slot was the Broadband Adapter.

no, it used the expansion bus. A grand total of 6 official devices used the expansion bus. the sega lan adapter, the bba, 56k modem,33k modem, karaoke player, and the null terminator (=P).

and yes, before anyone says it, the zip drive also used the expansion bus.

DaMadFiddler · Post by **DaMadFiddler** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 3:36 am

'Cause you KNOW how useful the Zip drive would be to get your hands on, especially since absolutely nothing was coded for it

Ender · Post by **Ender** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 4:18 am

DaMadFiddler wrote:'Cause you KNOW how useful the Zip drive would be to get your hands on, especially since absolutely nothing was coded for it

Better than a BBA for testing though. No transfer time, just the time it takes to write to the disc.

Prophet][ · Post by **Prophet][** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 6:12 am

except the disc for the DC and PC were supposed to be a different format, in a few things I;ve read they were hoping to make them compatible eventually by releasing PC software.

Post by **Quzar** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 10:45 am

Ender wrote:
DaMadFiddler wrote:'Cause you KNOW how useful the Zip drive would be to get your hands on, especially since absolutely nothing was coded for it
Better than a BBA for testing though. No transfer time, just the time it takes to write to the disc.

transfer time reading from a zip disc is slower than reading from a PC hard drive through BBA.

bizzle · Post by **bizzle** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 10:57 am

Zip drives are hideously slow.

Ender · Post by **Ender** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 3:46 pm

huh. I had no idea.

bizzle · Post by **bizzle** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 6:31 pm

Every zip drive I've ever used was extremely slow.

Morphv2 · Post by **Morphv2** » Tue Nov 30, 2004 9:56 pm

I actually emailed Iomega a few months back about the DC Zip drive, and asked for any info about it, including possible schematics and what not.

Believe it or not, they got back to me. The said they were interested in discussing it, and would contact me by phone. Unfortunately, the only phone I had at the time was my mother's cell phone, so I gave them that number, and told them to ask for me. A few days later, they called, unfortuantely when I wasn't there, and my mother asked if they would call back later.

Haven't heard from 'em since. Kinda wierd how they wanted to call me... You guys try it. Maybe you will have some success.

Alexvrb · Post by **Alexvrb** » Wed Dec 01, 2004 10:16 am

They probably just wanted to threaten you by phone just in case you were thinking of violating any of their intellectual property, somehow.