Hi all
I thought I'd share with you a project that I have been messing around with over the last year (very slowly between new house chores!) I got myself a nice condition Dreamcast (Japanese VA1) and have been tarting it up a bit, its still ongoing but I have enough Pr0n to start an interesting thread I think
Here's the DC with one of my fave Games for it, Shutoku Battle 2 (which I kept from when I used to have a DC back in the day).
Its very clean!
How it looks inside.
I changed the 110V PSU for an original UK 220V one first.
Hmm.. Dead battery...
That's better! And can be changed in the future much easier
Now to make a dual BIOS (the Dev kit "3D BIOS" for multiregion goodness) I got this pre programmed.
Needs to solder over the original BIOS. Here I have lifted the enable pin.
Straighten all the pins, then bend them over again to give a little more length.
All lined up ready.
All the relevant bits soldered in place (mod details at www.mmmonkey.co.uk) with a switch attached to select original JP or Dev BIOS.
Normal BIOS
Dev Multi Region BIOS
(The Dev BIOS looks nice and fancy and 3D.... But I actually prefer the original simple BIOS animation and sound, but It lets me play any region so can't be fussy!)
I got an SD card reader!
Activated by booting Dreamshell OS
Booting a game from SD card
But it looks dumb and pink.....
It needs hacking inside the DC!!
Wiring up to the Serial port internally
I have a DC that needs some caps taking off the bottom to make the SD reader more stable over a longer cable connection. (C605, 606 and 607)
It was still a little glitchy so put thicker wires in... you can also see the start of my VGA mod tapping from the RGB port Its currently hanging out the side of the DC and is working steady. It needs locating at some point. I plan to put it above the Modem and cut a small slot.
Here's my Over Clock mod. I want to run at stock 200MHz and Overclock to 240MHz. Some DC's can go up to 270MHz. Mine isn't one of those unfortunately. But playing games like sega Rally 2 at 240MHz are much nicer than stock so its good enough for me
Tapping +5V from PSU.
Wired in the switch and Oscillator (more details at www.mmmonkey.co.uk)
Reset Switch wired in. Sounds daft, but I miss having a reset button on the DC, I know you can soft reset games with the Joypad, but when dealing with Dreamshell a physical reset button is nice.
Then I found that its now possible via the newest Dreamshell (RC2) to install a HDD!! you can wait for the "official" GD adapter to come out, or do what I did and follow the pinouts here: -http://www.dc-swat.ru/blog/hardware/874.html
I gave it a crack!
I tried it first with CF card connected to a 2.5" IDE adapter. (You can also see my rough positioning for SD card slot, and funky toothbrush for holding the lid button down)
Here's a vid of it running Beats of Rage Golden Axe adaption off CF
[video]https://plus.google.com/photos/106929866019169011552/albums/6021215859466875073/6021215954256135090?pid=6021215954256135090&oid=106929866019169011552[/video]
But I found the DC is really picky with CF cards, so none of my higher capacity cards worked. Best I had was my trusty old 512MB Sandisk, but alas, this cannot hold a single Full Retail game. So I found an old 60GB IDE drive and loaded it with some games to test...
[video]https://plus.google.com/photos/106929866019169011552/albums/6021215859466875073/6025253670896189506?pid=6025253670896189506&oid=106929866019169011552[/video]
Not sure if it was the images I chose or the Dreamshell softwares current beta state, but only 60% of the games I tried loaded. I will be getting some more validated images to test soon (TOSEC ISO) which I hope will help. Also I hope some updates to Dreamshell will improve compatibility. But for now its GREAT! and saves on stress to the GD drive and noise!
Roughly drawn out pin out for IDE 44 to DC GDRom. You can connect all GND wires together and solder to one wire going to pin A8, same for +5V. Don't try and solder all the wires directly to the board. I actually got away with only soldering pin 2 to A8 and Pin 41 to A3 then the drives internals connected up where needed. Not all drives may support this though, beep test your drive and see if all GND and +5V lines are connected internally. Its also important to set the HDD as SLAVE otherwise it wont boot, just sit at the DC swirl forever. If you get a CF adapter, make sure you have ability to set as slave with jumpers. See next picture for GD pins onboard...
Hope these rough images help
VGA time!
Wired in a 15 Pin VGA connector and stereo Jack
Small Circuit taken from http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/dreamcast-internal-vga-mod/ But I modified mine a bit so it doesn't need a switch. The VGA plug itself switches the DC to VGA mode via 2 Grounding pins that create the circuit when its plugged in.
Roughly wired up. I've made small header pin connections to make dismantling possible in the future.
two pin connector is the grounding points. With no VGA connector these pins stay open cct. but when the VGA plug is inserted (And as long as all ground points on the monitor are shorted together) It will automatically set VGA mode. Unplug it and its back to RGB.
Lets plug it all in and give it a try..
Works! Looks absolutely smashing compared to the old CRT. Dreamcast is an old school console that looks more awesome via VGA than RGB SCART.
All that mess has to be squeezed in somehow!
Video of it running in VGA
[video]https://plus.google.com/photos/+LesRailton/albums/6021215859466875073/6025617967347845106?pid=6025617967347845106&oid=106929866019169011552[/video]
Thanks for looking and Stay Tuned!
I thought I'd share with you a project that I have been messing around with over the last year (very slowly between new house chores!) I got myself a nice condition Dreamcast (Japanese VA1) and have been tarting it up a bit, its still ongoing but I have enough Pr0n to start an interesting thread I think
Here's the DC with one of my fave Games for it, Shutoku Battle 2 (which I kept from when I used to have a DC back in the day).
Its very clean!
How it looks inside.
I changed the 110V PSU for an original UK 220V one first.
Hmm.. Dead battery...
That's better! And can be changed in the future much easier
Now to make a dual BIOS (the Dev kit "3D BIOS" for multiregion goodness) I got this pre programmed.
Needs to solder over the original BIOS. Here I have lifted the enable pin.
Straighten all the pins, then bend them over again to give a little more length.
All lined up ready.
All the relevant bits soldered in place (mod details at www.mmmonkey.co.uk) with a switch attached to select original JP or Dev BIOS.
Normal BIOS
Dev Multi Region BIOS
(The Dev BIOS looks nice and fancy and 3D.... But I actually prefer the original simple BIOS animation and sound, but It lets me play any region so can't be fussy!)
I got an SD card reader!
Activated by booting Dreamshell OS
Booting a game from SD card
But it looks dumb and pink.....
It needs hacking inside the DC!!
Wiring up to the Serial port internally
I have a DC that needs some caps taking off the bottom to make the SD reader more stable over a longer cable connection. (C605, 606 and 607)
It was still a little glitchy so put thicker wires in... you can also see the start of my VGA mod tapping from the RGB port Its currently hanging out the side of the DC and is working steady. It needs locating at some point. I plan to put it above the Modem and cut a small slot.
Here's my Over Clock mod. I want to run at stock 200MHz and Overclock to 240MHz. Some DC's can go up to 270MHz. Mine isn't one of those unfortunately. But playing games like sega Rally 2 at 240MHz are much nicer than stock so its good enough for me
Tapping +5V from PSU.
Wired in the switch and Oscillator (more details at www.mmmonkey.co.uk)
Reset Switch wired in. Sounds daft, but I miss having a reset button on the DC, I know you can soft reset games with the Joypad, but when dealing with Dreamshell a physical reset button is nice.
Then I found that its now possible via the newest Dreamshell (RC2) to install a HDD!! you can wait for the "official" GD adapter to come out, or do what I did and follow the pinouts here: -http://www.dc-swat.ru/blog/hardware/874.html
I gave it a crack!
I tried it first with CF card connected to a 2.5" IDE adapter. (You can also see my rough positioning for SD card slot, and funky toothbrush for holding the lid button down)
Here's a vid of it running Beats of Rage Golden Axe adaption off CF
[video]https://plus.google.com/photos/106929866019169011552/albums/6021215859466875073/6021215954256135090?pid=6021215954256135090&oid=106929866019169011552[/video]
But I found the DC is really picky with CF cards, so none of my higher capacity cards worked. Best I had was my trusty old 512MB Sandisk, but alas, this cannot hold a single Full Retail game. So I found an old 60GB IDE drive and loaded it with some games to test...
[video]https://plus.google.com/photos/106929866019169011552/albums/6021215859466875073/6025253670896189506?pid=6025253670896189506&oid=106929866019169011552[/video]
Not sure if it was the images I chose or the Dreamshell softwares current beta state, but only 60% of the games I tried loaded. I will be getting some more validated images to test soon (TOSEC ISO) which I hope will help. Also I hope some updates to Dreamshell will improve compatibility. But for now its GREAT! and saves on stress to the GD drive and noise!
Roughly drawn out pin out for IDE 44 to DC GDRom. You can connect all GND wires together and solder to one wire going to pin A8, same for +5V. Don't try and solder all the wires directly to the board. I actually got away with only soldering pin 2 to A8 and Pin 41 to A3 then the drives internals connected up where needed. Not all drives may support this though, beep test your drive and see if all GND and +5V lines are connected internally. Its also important to set the HDD as SLAVE otherwise it wont boot, just sit at the DC swirl forever. If you get a CF adapter, make sure you have ability to set as slave with jumpers. See next picture for GD pins onboard...
Hope these rough images help
VGA time!
Wired in a 15 Pin VGA connector and stereo Jack
Small Circuit taken from http://www.mmmonkey.co.uk/dreamcast-internal-vga-mod/ But I modified mine a bit so it doesn't need a switch. The VGA plug itself switches the DC to VGA mode via 2 Grounding pins that create the circuit when its plugged in.
Roughly wired up. I've made small header pin connections to make dismantling possible in the future.
two pin connector is the grounding points. With no VGA connector these pins stay open cct. but when the VGA plug is inserted (And as long as all ground points on the monitor are shorted together) It will automatically set VGA mode. Unplug it and its back to RGB.
Lets plug it all in and give it a try..
Works! Looks absolutely smashing compared to the old CRT. Dreamcast is an old school console that looks more awesome via VGA than RGB SCART.
All that mess has to be squeezed in somehow!
Video of it running in VGA
[video]https://plus.google.com/photos/+LesRailton/albums/6021215859466875073/6025617967347845106?pid=6025617967347845106&oid=106929866019169011552[/video]
Thanks for looking and Stay Tuned!
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