New Dreamcast SD Adapter on sale at Chinese website

[not just souLLy now]

Got a confirmation of postage to me literally today, I went for standard postage so I can't see me getting it this side of 2011. I'll post some photos when I get it though, if anyone wants anything in particular tested let me know, I've no idea what's exciting in the world of Dreamcast these days.

[Christuserloeser]

I would have preferred the older ones.

The older ones were handmade. These look as if they were mass produced in a factory!

- I'd love to make a newspost for those. How did you guys order them and what did it cost ?

I'll post some photos when I get it though, if anyone wants anything in particular tested let me know, I've no idea what's exciting in the world of Dreamcast these days.

I'd love to hear if it works with Neo4All/AES & Doom for DC

[not just souLLy now]

It's cost me a fraction over $20 from buyfromtaobao.com. You pay for the item and shipping to them, then once it's arrived they weigh the item and calculate shipping to you, it seems like a really slow process.

[cube_b3]

The link to ordering them is on page 2.

http://buyfromtaobao.com/

Paste the link of whatever you want to buy from them here, and this 3rd party site will get it for you.
I haven't ordered this yet.

[Anthony817]

Just so you guys know what is and what is not compatible with these adaptors and Dreamshell, look at this thread, it will tell you what to do to make bootable images of iso's and which comercial games are compatible with it. They are making a growing list of compatible programs and games, and even have a place where you can download SD ready binary images of pre-ripped games.

http://www.dc-swat.ru/forum/forum-29.html

[law56ker]

So what is the best bet on buying these things, anything better than buyrfromtaobao?

[Christuserloeser]

I doubt there is any alternative yet.

Just so you guys know what is and what is not compatible with these adaptors and Dreamshell, look at this thread, it will tell you what to do to make bootable images of iso's and which comercial games are compatible with it. They are making a growing list of compatible programs and games, and even have a place where you can download SD ready binary images of pre-ripped games.

http://www.dc-swat.ru/forum/forum-29.html

Seems at least SQRXZ is compatible with the SD adapter: http://www.dc-swat.ru/forum/thread-1381.html

I also seem to remember that a few of the recent Dreamcast.es releases mentioned SD support.

[Quzar]

So what is the best bet on buying these things, anything better than buyrfromtaobao?

If you look to page 2 of this thread, you'll see sweaterfish lists a number of alternatives:

hilltopper, did you ever receive your order through buyfromtaobao.com?

I placed a large order through them at the beginning of November and after much hassling, they finally say they have the adapters and are ready to ship them out. Nearly two months later. Of course, they claimed that this was the manufacturer's fault, that he needed more time to put together enough units to fill our order. It wasn't that large of an order and I see that the seller has sold a lot of units to other people in the meantime so it sounds very fishy to me. Plus, buyfromtaobao never responded when I asked them to forward me their e-mails with the seller.

Maybe they're on the level, but I do wish I'd researched more before using Buyfromtaobao. There are other services that have better reputations. Taobaonow, Taobaoagent, Obook.

Oh well, I think we finally will get the adapters. Those of you who ordered with me...hopefully some time in January.

I wonder what type they will be, though? I see that the more recent versions of the adapter don't have a wire anymore.


I would have preferred the older ones.


...word is bondage...

[Sweater Fish]

The older ones were handmade. These look as if they were mass produced in a factory!

They're still handmade. He's buying USB SD readers, modifying them and then putting the modded reader back into the old packaging along with a xeroxed and hand cut paper insert. Personally, I like that they're handmade. It's more awesomer that way. I've tested most of the adapters I received and no defects yet, either.

The shipment I received was all the new style with no wire and all purple cases, too.\


...word is bondage...

[not just souLLy now]

Mine finally arrived and it turns out my Dreamcast is dead, lame.

[Ex-Cyber]

The older ones were handmade. These look as if they were mass produced in a factory!

They're still handmade. He's buying USB SD readers, modifying them and then putting the modded reader back into the old packaging along with a xeroxed and hand cut paper insert. Personally, I like that they're handmade. It's more awesomer that way. I've tested most of the adapters I received and no defects yet, either.

The shipment I received was all the new style with no wire and all purple cases, too.\

Any idea what he's doing for the connector? Does it look professionally made or does it look like it was cut down from a larger connector or molded with epoxy or similar?

[Quzar]

When you have something that's just inserting it's possible that he just took any connector with the right pin stride and used padding on the back to keep it in the socket.

My idea had been to use a vga-box or scart connector with all its pins and just chop off the extra ones. The two connectors work the same.

[Sweater Fish]

Any idea what he's doing for the connector? Does it look professionally made or does it look like it was cut down from a larger connector or molded with epoxy or similar?

You can see the connector pretty well in the picture I posted above from his auction page. Well, specifically it's the picture of the older model with a wire, but the EXT port connector is the same. It doesn't seem to be a larger connector that's been cut down since it has a plastic frame all the way around, so either he found a source for exactly the right connector or he's making them himself somehow. Behind this connector is some white plastic that's been cut or filed down and then glued on to make the connector fit properly which you can see in some of the other pictures.

souLLy, my Dreamcast was acting up when I first tried using it, too. It always does when I first come back to it after a while. It's the connector between the power supply and the main board in my case. Leads to random resets or the screen blacking out or sometimes just nothing at all happening (except that the orange power light does come on) when I press the power button. I tried fixing it up with a drop of solder the last time this happened, but apparently that wasn't a permanent enough fix. After opening up the system and wiggling the connector around, it's been working reliably for the past couple days, but I'm thinking I may decide to just solder the power supply to the main board completely.


...word is bondage...

[not just souLLy now]

Any idea what he's doing for the connector? Does it look professionally made or does it look like it was cut down from a larger connector or molded with epoxy or similar?

You can see the connector pretty well in the picture I posted above from his auction page. Well, specifically it's the picture of the older model with a wire, but the EXT port connector is the same. It doesn't seem to be a larger connector that's been cut down since it has a plastic frame all the way around, so either he found a source for exactly the right connector or he's making them himself somehow. Behind this connector is some white plastic that's been cut or filed down and then glued on to make the connector fit properly which you can see in some of the other pictures.

souLLy, my Dreamcast was acting up when I first tried using it, too. It always does when I first come back to it after a while. It's the connector between the power supply and the main board in my case. Leads to random resets or the screen blacking out or sometimes just nothing at all happening (except that the orange power light does come on) when I press the power button. I tried fixing it up with a drop of solder the last time this happened, but apparently that wasn't a permanent enough fix. After opening up the system and wiggling the connector around, it's been working reliably for the past couple days, but I'm thinking I may decide to just solder the power supply to the main board completely.


...word is bondage...

Yeah, for me the fan came on, but no orange light, the disk started spinning but no picture showed... might be my a combo of my Dreamcast and VGA box that's died. Might have a poke around inside if I can be bothered later

[Anthony817]

I just ordered mine lastnight for $11.14 and requested the newer orange ones. I have not seen what Buytaobao is charging me yet on Shipping and handling. The initial reciept stated it was only .50 Cents for the handling, but Adam Koralik said they rape you on shipping. I hope it only comes out to $20 in total and some change.

I am trying to bid on a 32GB SD card on Ebay for under $40. Anybody know where they sale them all at for cheaper? I just got a PSP hacked for the first time, and was wanting 2, 32GB cards, one for my PSP, and the other for my Dreamcast.

As it stands right now, I have 2, 4GB SD cards already. One is in my PSP, and the other is in a drawer waiting for the SD reader.

Edit: I won the bid on the 32GB SD Card for $42 free shipping. I also just bought a brand new Dreamcast Keyboard and mouse combo pack for $24 with free shipping.

Dreamcast KBMouse New.JPG (26.42 KiB) Viewed 4246 times

http://cgi.ebay.com/SEGA-DREAMCAST-KEYB ... 1e60defa56

[cube_b3]

Never got a rat for my dc, hmmm.

[ASCIIN]

I honestly dont see the benefit in this seeing from what i hear the serial port is nowhere near as fast as the gdrom, less waste of cd-rs maybe?

[not just souLLy now]

I honestly dont see the benefit in this seeing from what i hear the serial port is nowhere near as fast as the gdrom, less waste of cd-rs maybe?

You can say that about any aspect of the scene really; emulation in general, what's the benefit over playing on the original console? There is the saved effort and CDRs, but really it's about playing with a new hacky piece of kit

[Anthony817]

It don't matter if you see the logic in this, people still want it for a "Homebrew channel", plus it can pley retail GDRoms fine SOMETIMES, so the games that ARE compatible fullspeed are awesome.

[Quzar]

The big benefit is the ability to have large rewritable storage that can be read near universally. The VMU can hold a max of 128k (100k usable) and it is very very difficult to get data on/off the VMU (especially without a Dreamcast, and serial cable or BBA). Having this allows for all sorts of homebrew that has simply been impossible or pointless in the past due to that limitation.