DreamPi NOOBS-compatible image release

DreamPi NOOBS-compatible
image release!

    Two years ago for my 24th birthday, I finally picked up a Sega Dreamcast, one of Sega's coolest and most innovative game consoles, which unfortunately was discontinued prematurely during its video game generation. It's still possible today to get a Sega Dreamcast online (even without a dial-up service available at a residency), to browse the web and send emails on DC-compatible web browsers, and even to play some online games again via resurrected private servers. The Sega Dreamcast comes supplied with a 56k dial-up modem; although a DSL Broadband adapter (the infamous "BBA") exists, it's quite rare and expensive (still so today). 

 Older attempts at getting my Dreamcast back online

    During that year, I tried getting my Dreamcast online by creating a Linux-based PC-DC server on my modern laptop. A PC-DC Server is a set of software that runs on a computer that converts a modern-day ethernet internet connection to something that dial-up based computers can use to connect to the internet. The software will answer to the dial-up calls from older computers, and convert the modern-day internet connection to a dial-up connection which the older device can use. My modern development machine just so happened to have a legacy v.92 Fax-modem port. Unfortunately, the modem model of my Dreamcast requires a voltage on the dial-up connection in order to function, so I soldered up a Line Voltage Inducer circuit. Although I tried running some Linux commands on a BunsenLabs Linux virtual machine to run a PC-DC server, I was only able to connect the Dreamcast to the internet for browsing; I was unable to get it to connect to private game servers. Often a connection attempt would be flaky, which was odd, and I suspected the LVI not to be soldered that well.

   Thinking the issue could be either hardware or setup related (especially with using a virtual machine), a year later I received from someone a very nice, used, older PC tower (a custom-built K8V SE Deluxe mo'bo in a ThermalIntake XTaser3 case). Always wanting a machine dedicated to playing old DOS and Windows 95-based titles, I installed Windows ME onto an HDD for the machine. Although ME does not have direct Real Mode DOS support out of the box (it's buried in the OS), it's possible to hack Real Mode DOS functionality back into the machine. More about this machine in an upcoming blog post or video. With the machine, I installed into it a v.92 US Robotics PCI card for dial-up connections, which would give a much more authentic dial-up connection for a PC-DC server. After installing the related software to setup a PC-DC server using the PCI dial-up modem (Windows 98 guide), I still was only able to browse the web, but not connect to games. At one point the modem card caused booting up of ME to not respond indefinitely, and, due to my usage of the particular Real Mode DOS hack I used ("Real Mode DOS Patch 3", which sacrificed emergency boot and Safe Mode functionality to use) and not having a working System Restore point (due to not having an update patch which fixes system restore failure issues past an odd Sept. 2001 date), I had to reformat the drive with a fresh Windows ME install. At this point I gave on trying to setup a PC-DC server via VM and dedicated DosBox for an online connection and decided to eventually purchase a DreamPi.

Physical Windows ME
DOSBox :)

DreamPi attempt

   A DreamPi is a standardized set of software (a customized Linux Distro) and a set of hardware created by a fellow named "Kazade" which will create a simplified DC-PC server. A DreamPi setup consists of a Raspberry Pi model 2/3 computer, a Linux-compatible USB Fax modem, an ethernet connection, and a Line Voltage Inducer. The software takes care of the dial-up connection with a very minimum, automated setup for the user, and will even allow the user to create an account for the DreamPi on the Dreamcast Now website. The Dreamcast now website will show the usernames of players currently online with DreamPis, and which online compatible game they are playing, allowing for easy hooking up with people for online matches. DreamPi by extension can also get other dial-up based computers back online, including the Sega Saturn, which can browse the restored NetLink zones for NetLink compatible games (Saturn guide). One problem with the DreamPi Linux distro is that it is a raw image file, meant to be written directly to the SD Card, making it quite unsuitable for allowing multi-booting of various OSes on the same SD Card.

 DreamPi Kit

DreamPi NOOBS-compatible image

    To fix this problem, I have released a NOOBS-compatible DreamPi image, based off DreamPi v1.6. NOOBS (New Out-Of Box Setup) is a bootloader for Raspberry Pi, that allows the installation of multiple OSes in such a way as to allow multi-boot. This DreamPi image works with NOOBS, and has a nifty slideshow upon installation explaining the features of DreamPi. By extension, this image is compatible with PINN. PINN (PINN Is Not NOOBS) is an enhanced version of NOOBS, which I recommend over using NOOBS. It has the following extra features over standards NOOBS:

• Various ways to install OSes
• Install from SD Card (offline)
• Install from online server (with a wider variety of OSes)
• External Media
• USB Flash Drive
• External SD Card via a USB SD Card reader
• Install additional 512MB ext4 Data partitions, for general data usage
• Download and archive to the SD Card the OSes from the online server, for offline installation
• Easily reinstall OSes if something goes wrong (without having to redo a fresh NOOBS/PINN setup)
• Various maintenance capabilities
• OS maintenance utility
• Recovery shell
• SD card clone utility
• Password restorer
• File System Checker

  The image can be downloaded on its page in the Sega Dreamcast section of my website, along with info about it and how to use it. With my DreamPi, I was finally able to get my Dreamcast and Saturn back online for web browsing, and to get the Dreamcast back online for gaming! Couple with my NOOBS-compatible image, I was able to get a few other Linux distros working on the same SD card with a multi-boot setup.

Installing and using

DreamPi NOOBS compatible image

Installation slideshow

 

Some pictures of getting my

Dreamcast back online with DreamPi :)

 Getting my Sega Saturn

to browse the web with DreamPi

 Enjoy this DreamPi NOOBS compatible image for getting your Dreamcast/other dial-up computers back online, while enabling multiboot for other Linux distros!

-Tamkis

Sega Saturn pickups/repairs

Sega Saturn pickups/repairs

 

   I'm not dead a hobo yet; just have been really busy with life lately, including having moved out of my parents' house and into my first apartment during July 2017, and being busy with a new job (in the video game development industry, at long last!) back in January 2017. I plan on making more regular blog posts and updating the website with updated portfolio items from the new job soon!

   During October 2017, I found an ad on Craigslist about somebody selling an out-of-order Model 1 Sega Saturn in the Pittsburgh area for $25. I never had a Sega Saturn growing up (heck, I didn't even know it was even a part of the 5th video game generation until a few years ago), and usually wasn't interested in looking to pick one up, since they usually sell for anywhere from $25-$70 depending on the condition. The ad said that the console was working at one time, but now wouldn't read disks.

   After doing some research (via this incredibly useful Youtube video), I found that the common repairs for the CD read issues for Model 1 Saturns were quite simple. Knowing that the fixes can be simple, I decided to reply to the ad. The seller said that the unit wouldn't spin discs at all (let that be CD audio, Saturn, or CD+G discs); nevertheless, I went to see the Saturn unit in person.

   At the seller's residency, I saw that the Saturn could indeed power up, but wouldn't spin any type of applicable discs (however, the unit would display when the CD lid was opened in the BIOS multiplayer). Knowing that the fixes can be easy, I took the risk in purchasing it for repairs. We eventually bargained for $22 for the Saturn and a generic 2 prong power cable.

During this same day, I picked up items to get what I would need to look into repairing the Saturn:

• Eclipse Pad Saturn controller
• Retrobit Saturn AV cable
• Cheap copy of NBA Live '98

  After a lot of troubleshooting (and help from the previously linked Youtube video), the Saturn was quite easy to repair, and works perfectly now.

Turns out the issues were the following:

• CD laser power potentiometer was out of spec
• Fixed by adjusting the pot to 0.720 kΩ
• This allowed the laser to power on and start spinning the CD, but still no reading of discs
  
• CD Motor spindle height was out of spec
• Fixed by adjusting the height of the spindle within tolerance (~1-2mm distance from black plastic guard and spindle)
• This got audio CDs to play, but not Saturn game CDs
  
• Saturn game CD potentiometer's resistance was too low
• Adjusted resistance of pot until Saturn CDs could be recognized and booted
• CD drive fully repaired afterwards.

    Not too shabby for a broken Saturn, eh? Around late October, I also picked up a few other things for pretty good prices:

• Sega Saturn Netlink Modem ($20 on Ebay)
• With Planetweb browser disc
  
• PS/2 Netlink keyboard adapter
• With Saturn controller extension cable
• $10 on eBay, but the keyboard adapter got lost in the mail
• Ended up getting another one (a little more expensive being boxed, but cheapest on eBay at the time)

    It's still possible in 2017 to play Netlink-enabled games online on the real Saturn hardware, via either an old-fashioned 56k dial-up connection (if you still have such connection) or over modern-day ethernet via a VOIP adapter. I really look forward to playing these games online in the near future after acquiring an unlocked Cisco / Linksys SPA1001 FXS VoIP Phone Adapter (maybe for Christmas 😉 ). As for the keyboard adapter, that would be used for chat in Netlink games, and also for tinkering around with a copy of Game Basic for Sega Saturn later on. It's an obscure Japanese Saturn game that has a BASIC interpreter, used for creating Saturns games/software, in order to create some homebrew games in the future 😃.

    Lastly, I recently acquired a Sega Saturn Gamer's Cartridge last week. It's an incredibly amazing, custom Saturn cartridge which can allow the user to play backups on CD-Rs, to play import games, to save BRAM data on an SD card, to migrate BRAM data to/from the internal BRAM/external SD BRAM, to emulate Floppy Disk saves (for the few games that support the Saturn FDD), to run small homebrew applications from SD card, and to do much more! It comes pre-installed with Pseudo Saturn Kai firmware in order to achieve all of these features and more. (I plan on making a separate blog post/video review about this amazing cartridge in early December 2017.)

  Below is a quick video I created discussing the repairs and some of those Saturn pickups. I plan on making more videos like this (but better quality), for reviewing old video game console hardware/repairs, and reviewing some video games in either a future Youtube channel called "Nerdology" or a Twitch channel.

 Overall, picking up that cheap $22 Saturn was worth it, considering how easy it was to repair it. The Saturn was a somewhat obscure Sega console (it didn't do very well at all in the US, but was wildly popular in Japan). Although it could do 3D graphics, it's strengths lie in its 2D graphical abilities, which is where its game library shines. Exploring the Saturn library with this repaired Saturn will be fun.

-Tamkis