So, why can't we have a homebrew lan adapter?

Prophet][ · Post by **Prophet][** » Fri Dec 30, 2005 11:03 pm

Quzar wrote:Prophet, you mentioned usb. Someone already did that and schematics are availible online. He determined that it would cost ~50$ a pop and would max out the DC's serial connection ( 1.2mbps?) which is something like 10x faster than standard serial, but bba is still 10x faster than that...

If you read this whole topic you will find that I posted the link to that. But it won't work for internet without someone making a server and client software. 1.2mbps is faster than 56k for the modem and the cable I reckon can be made for about $30 if you were trying to cut costs.

Post by **Quzar** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 2:24 am

Prophet][ wrote:
Quzar wrote:Prophet, you mentioned usb. Someone already did that and schematics are availible online. He determined that it would cost ~50$ a pop and would max out the DC's serial connection ( 1.2mbps?) which is something like 10x faster than standard serial, but bba is still 10x faster than that...
If you read this whole topic you will find that I posted the link to that. But it won't work for internet without someone making a server and client software. 1.2mbps is faster than 56k for the modem and the cable I reckon can be made for about $30 if you were trying to cut costs.

sorry, i didn't notice you posting the link. yea, i know it wouldn't work for the internet but if a homebrew lan adapter were made not compatible with the original ones it wouldn't be internet ready without special new software anyways =P.

semicolo · Post by **semicolo** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 7:48 am

yes, but the ide interface is very primitive, no buffers, no dma and even no interrupt handling.
If we want a bba compatible interface, it need to be much more advanced.

pnpbios · Post by **pnpbios** » Sat Dec 31, 2005 6:35 pm

Since this thread is still on top, I've discovered the DC VS cable. Does that one work as well as the NeoGeo Pocket -> DC link cable for making stuff like the USB adaptor and standard coder's cable?

semicolo · Post by **semicolo** » Sun Jan 01, 2006 3:20 am

I think there are some wire missing (+3.3V ?) in the dc vs cables. Axlen could answer this better since he tried to use them for his usb projects if I remember well.
Probably more information on the usb cable thread.

semicolo · Post by **semicolo** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 4:18 pm

no it's a bit more hard to hook 2 modems together (you need to simulate the phone line tone, ringing when numbers dialed...).

Post by **Quzar** » Sun Jan 08, 2006 6:29 pm

It doesn't work like that. The simplest way is a 9V battery, but that doesn't work so simply always.

pnpbios · Post by **pnpbios** » Mon Jan 09, 2006 12:30 am

Well, I've been going through the source of dreamcast modem driver. In the example posted, you can dial a PC if it's directly connected. It didn't make any mention of needing the 9v battery hack. I guess you can treat it like a null modem device.

I'm going to stick some effort into playing around with this driver. I'll let you guys know if I can some up with something.

In the mean time, where can I find info on the zmodem protocol? I think QBASIC is going to get a bit of a work out on my machine.

Prophet][ · Post by **Prophet][** » Tue Jan 10, 2006 2:23 am

pnpbios wrote:Well, I've been going through the source of dreamcast modem driver. In the example posted, you can dial a PC if it's directly connected. It didn't make any mention of needing the 9v battery hack. I guess you can treat it like a null modem device.

I'm going to stick some effort into playing around with this driver. I'll let you guys know if I can some up with something.

In the mean time, where can I find info on the zmodem protocol? I think QBASIC is going to get a bit of a work out on my machine.

You probably know this already but their is a lot of info on http://www.boob.co.uk on the forums about the modem driver, nick the guy who made the first driver to use with KOS post most of his stuff on the foums their.

Phantom · Post by **Phantom** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 10:25 am

Making a modem version of dc-load is possible. Together with an adapted version of dc-tool it'd be a matter of making the modem connection, after which normal serial communication can proceed (an IP stack is not needed). However it would be much, much slower than using the coder's cable. The coder's cable can do 115Kbps while the modem can only do 33Kbps. It's also very tricky to get a direct modem-to-modem connection to work (line voltage issues etc), while coder's cables are still easy to obtain. I'm not sure it's worth the effort.

pnpbios · Post by **pnpbios** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 10:42 am

Ross L. wrote:Any progress pnp?

I'm working on finishing pong first. And I still need to find my PCI modem for my desktop. Don't wory, it's on the list.

Phantom · Post by **Phantom** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 3:03 pm

Ross L. wrote:If we can pull it off, we have the poor man's coder's cable and a possible avenue for DC vs DC console multiplayer games.

You could write a small server program that runs on a PC, and then connect to it with a coder's cable (or a modem, if you *really* want to) and go online that way. There's no real need for dc-tool in this scenario, although it should be possible to hack this functionality into dc-tool (with the added advantage that the existing dc-tool functionality would still be accessible).

So basically if you want to go in that direction there are two seperate issues:

1) Adding modem support to dc-tool/dcload.
2) Adding networking support to dc-tool/dcload.