Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by Neoblast »

Well, Dc hardware was discontinued, maybe it's not propietary anymore.
Anyone happen to know the model number for that connector?
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by Quzar »

Neoblast wrote:Well, Dc hardware was discontinued, maybe it's not propietary anymore.
Anyone happen to know the model number for that connector?
How far exactly is this project? Just planning? Is one of you just going to sit in a room and solder these together for days on end? Do you have a place to get the SD card end?
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by Neoblast »

There is a lot of people involved in this, not just one guy.
We have nearly all the materials except for the dc serial end.
We are trying to sell it at cost price.
I mean the price will mostly be the materials cost ( most expensive is the dc serial end ), shipping, and we'll have to pay a little to whom is going to solder them...
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by Treamcaster »

Hellz yeah! I want one OMFG woot! :lol:
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by Stryfe »

Quzar wrote:You could try to get it made custom by an electronics supply company. There are a number who will do that, but since it's a proprietary connector(that isn't originally yours) they might not want to (similar to how cd companies had problems pressing DC homebrew).
Just out of curiosity, how would manufactoring custom parts for the DC be any different than companies that produced third party peripherals like controllers, vmus, and the like?
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by Quzar »

Stryfe wrote:
Quzar wrote:You could try to get it made custom by an electronics supply company. There are a number who will do that, but since it's a proprietary connector(that isn't originally yours) they might not want to (similar to how cd companies had problems pressing DC homebrew).
Just out of curiosity, how would manufactoring custom parts for the DC be any different than companies that produced third party peripherals like controllers, vmus, and the like?
They have an actual company behind them (money), as opposed to homebrewers who have to ask to even get that far. They're much more familiar with the process and know manufacturers and such. Also, when stuff like that is new, lots of care is taken to make things as different as possible (at least cosmetically). Ever notice how 3rd party things will have odd looking plugs with weird grips (squiggly lines and such)?
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by Ex-Cyber »

Stryfe wrote:
Quzar wrote:You could try to get it made custom by an electronics supply company. There are a number who will do that, but since it's a proprietary connector(that isn't originally yours) they might not want to (similar to how cd companies had problems pressing DC homebrew).
Just out of curiosity, how would manufactoring custom parts for the DC be any different than companies that produced third party peripherals like controllers, vmus, and the like?
In principle, it's exactly the same. In practice, the differences between a manufacturer of mainstream peripherals and a hobbyist effort are quantity and the money available to invest up front. While the marginal cost of a bit of injection-molded plastic is small, even a "cheap" mold can cost thousands of dollars. Amortizing the mold cost over 100,000 pieces isn't a problem; amortizing it over 500 means you end up with some awfully expensive bits of plastic.
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by GyroVorbis »

So I am interested in ordering one. I also have a spare coder's cable and system link. Do you think maybe I could have a price reduction if I sent either of these two to whoever is building this?
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by Quzar »

GyroVorbis wrote:So I am interested in ordering one. I also have a spare coder's cable and system link. Do you think maybe I could have a price reduction if I sent either of these two to whoever is building this?
The shipping cost to Spain would probably negate that =p
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by Jae686 »

I find it interesting, although i've only heard about it too late (I'm already working on adding the USB<->DC serial interface + sd card reader inside the dreamcast it self. When i've heard of the sd card adapter from emuforge I've already had ordered the parts)
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by cube_b3 »

A memory question: Does it take more RAM to read from an SD card in contrast to reading from a CD-Rom?

Is this going to be used as a large memory card or we will run our inde/homebrew games from it directly?
Basically if a game's booted from the card will it run at same speed?
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by Ex-Cyber »

BILAL_XIA wrote:A memory question: Does it take more RAM to read from an SD card in contrast to reading from a CD-Rom?
Not really. In practice, the filesystems used probably make a bigger difference in RAM usage than the medium itself. Even then, the difference is probably so small that it would not make a practical difference on a system like Dreamcast; it's the kind of difference that might matter for a small microcontroller.
BILAL_XIA wrote:Is this going to be used as a large memory card or we will run our inde/homebrew games from it directly?
Basically if a game's booted from the card will it run at same speed?
SD vs. CD would only affect load times. SD has a much faster seek time than the CD/GD drive, but a much slower transfer rate, so small loads would be faster, but big loads would be slower.
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by law56ker »

This sounds cool. Could someone with some technical knowledge explain what all will be able to be loaded off of this from existing emulators,apps to future releases. Could we possibly see A Nesterdc se loading off this. That would be great because people say that that emulator and others are hard on the dreamcasts laser.
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by Quzar »

law56ker wrote:This sounds cool. Could someone with some technical knowledge explain what all will be able to be loaded off of this from existing emulators,apps to future releases. Could we possibly see A Nesterdc se loading off this. That would be great because people say that that emulator and others are hard on the dreamcasts laser.
It will basically do anything that can already be done via coder's cable (except the few interactive things). It will *NOT* replace the GD drive. Regardless of anything else, you will still need to use a disc to boot the system, then possibly load programs off SD. The big thing it will add is persistent storage. We might see emulators with save states, which are simply too big for vmus.
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by cube_b3 »

So after this all you'll need is a boot cd and we can even boot actual games from it?
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by law56ker »

Quzar wrote:
law56ker wrote:This sounds cool. Could someone with some technical knowledge explain what all will be able to be loaded off of this from existing emulators,apps to future releases. Could we possibly see A Nesterdc se loading off this. That would be great because people say that that emulator and others are hard on the dreamcasts laser.
It will basically do anything that can already be done via coder's cable (except the few interactive things). It will *NOT* replace the GD drive. Regardless of anything else, you will still need to use a disc to boot the system, then possibly load programs off SD. The big thing it will add is persistent storage. We might see emulators with save states, which are simply too big for vmus.

Would it be possible to load/stream/swap files off this device for large rom files? For emulators such mugen, segacd, mugen etc...
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by Quzar »

BILAL_XIA wrote:So after this all you'll need is a boot cd and we can even boot actual games from it?
I figured this was why most people were so excited. If it was possible to boot off the serial port, then dc development would be significantly different, with coder's cables being much more useful than BBA =P. Without other modification, there is no known way to boot off anything but the BIOS itself, GD, or MILCD.
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by OneThirty8 »

Quzar wrote:
BILAL_XIA wrote:So after this all you'll need is a boot cd and we can even boot actual games from it?
I figured this was why most people were so excited. If it was possible to boot off the serial port, then dc development would be significantly different, with coder's cables being much more useful than BBA =P. Without other modification, there is no known way to boot off anything but the BIOS itself, GD, or MILCD.
Yeah, but what is to prevent somebody from writing a loader with a filebrowser to allow people to then execute a program from the card once the Dreamcast has booted from CD?
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by cube_b3 »

from writing a loader with a filebrowser to allow people to then execute a program from the card once the Dreamcast has booted from CD?
What exactly do you want to prevent them from loading & why?
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Re: Dreamcast SD adapter by EmuForge

Post by OneThirty8 »

BILAL_XIA wrote:
from writing a loader with a filebrowser to allow people to then execute a program from the card once the Dreamcast has booted from CD?
What exactly do you want to prevent them from loading & why?
Quzar stated that the Dreamcast will not suddenly gain the capability to boot from media connected to the serial port. This is true, but I don't see why this would keep us from loading a program from the SD card once the machine boots up. Somebody could write a program that would allow this, just like people can currently write programs to load a program from the CD into memory and then execute it.
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