DC Expansion Port

gaara of the desert · Post by **gaara of the desert** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 4:00 pm

Does anybody have ant ideas of where I can find the pinout of the DC expansion port (the one with the modem in it). I am very interested in making some cool application boards for it to do some fancy things.

Hopefully, if I can get the pinout and my compiler to work, I can develop some cool circuits like a printer connection or a type of network connection.

Thanks loads guys.

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 4:07 pm

erm, not questioning your skils, but what would you do with a printer on your dc? there is no real word processor for it, and network stuff can be done with a bba

could you design a bba? that would be very very kewl, ar maybe a hdd or fdd interface

but i still think it would be kinda useless

gaara of the desert · Post by **gaara of the desert** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 4:14 pm

I am doing a degree in Electronic Engineering and my specialism is in Computer Communications so I have have a lot of experience making network adapters.

Other than that I just love to make electronic circuits for the fun of it. A HDD interface wouldn't be that hard. It has been done with much simpler processors.

I haven't got anything in specific in mind, I will have a look at the port connections to see what types of things I can connect to it.

Matt · Post by **Matt** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 4:16 pm

Now this sounds promising. Bit Tech has a pinout from what I can remeber, I can't find the link at the moment but im sure quiet a few other people have it handy

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 4:23 pm

kewl gaara, im studying electronics to, im going for the bachelorate, and i am thinking of speciallizing in computer tech too!

really kewl you know jut building pcbs for the fun of it, too bad i dont have the knowledge yet to do it (second year)

riva16 · Post by **riva16** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 5:04 pm

I was JUST about to post for this. I need the pinout too. I remember seing it, but never thought of anything for the "empty" pins, the ones that don't do anything, until now... I wanna install my RCA jacks inside the modem case, along with modem still inside, and use the blank pins to carry a video, left, and right sound cicuit straight to the DC's AV Out for my PS2. Would be easy, once I find the pinout.

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 5:44 pm

do the pins in the expansion socket actually carry video and audio outputs?

Post by **Quzar** » Thu Feb 26, 2004 9:20 pm

no, but they have the interrupts from the audio chip, since it is on the same bus as the audio chip. Gaara, cool that you like naruto, also... the HDD has been done. Someone made a whole ISA bus that connected to the expansion port, sorry if i dont have info but try looking up IDE DC or something like that on google. They built a board that was an ISA slot and an IDE interface that worked off the G2 (expansion) bus. goodluck.

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 4:19 am

em guys, what would be the point of hooking an isa bus to the dc, allright i have this old soundblaster 16 card from creative, but the dc has onboard audio, and the card requires drivers, and where would you install them?

its all very nice and all, but what use is an isa buss on a dreamcast, i doubt you would even be able to test it using an actual isa card

DaMadFiddler · Post by **DaMadFiddler** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 4:54 am

...I've seen that somewhere too...but it was quite a while ago. I think the main point was to get a hard drive running, for DCLinux and development purposes. Plus, it seems that there are actually people out there looking to DC as a low-cost alternative for Linux fileservers. Think about it: need an extra server for your network, go to the gamestore and pay fifteen bucks. Not a bad bargain

...Personally, although I doubt it would ever happen due to hardware compatibility and driver issues, I would love to see an adapter engineered for either ISA or PCI ethernet cards. The DC BBA is just too expensive and hard to come by...and it seems silly to pay more for an accessory that I'll only use once in a while than I paid for the REST OF THE HARDWARE COMBINED, INCLUDING THE SYSTEM

But yeah. There are purposes.

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 5:56 am

well for a linux file server youd need it to both have a hdd and a lan adapter, that isnt that easy i think

you would need either 1 ide and 1 pci buss, or two pci busses (scsi drive)

DaMadFiddler · Post by **DaMadFiddler** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 6:07 am

My understanding is that such situations it was being used as a "downstream-only" provider--in other words, you could download from it, but not upload. All you need for that is a network adapter, and a DCLinux disc with whatever files you want it to serve burned onto the disc. A bit on the slow side, but durn cheap.

Clarkbar · Post by **Clarkbar** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 6:34 am

I'd buy a bba if someone could make one cheaper than the $100 on ebay they go for.

Disheveled DrFreeze · Post by **Disheveled DrFreeze** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 6:40 am

mmm okay, so you only need linux and a bba

that limits your storage capacity very much

id say get a normal pc platform, an oldie for dirt cheap and hook up a hdd, that ll get you much more storage

tom61a · Post by **tom61a** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 5:53 pm

The main site is now 'dead' that had the pinout of the port and how to build the IDE and ISA interfaces.

Good news is that the web.archive.org has an archive of it: http://web.archive.org/web/200306250015 ... index.html

Neat stuff. Take pics and post if you build any of it!

Post by **Quzar** » Fri Feb 27, 2004 11:01 pm

you can never have a PCI bus because of the speed. For this the G2 bus was downclocked to get an ISA bus, you cant 'upclock' something (overclock, but not in this case =P )