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The Hardware of the Dreamcast
Sega makes some really good hardware that despite it's high quality it seams almost cursed in the market place.
There was actually two separate systems development projects that eventually became the Sega Dreamcast. There was a project made by Sega of Japan called "Dural" and one made by Sega of America called "Black belt".
"Black belt" was going to feature a Microsoft CE OS and a 3dfx made 3d chip. Sega actually had a deal with 3dfx and since they backed out of the deal 3dFX sued them big time.
And the development was combined in "Katana" that eventually became the Dreamcast. Sega decided on a PowerVR2 DC 3d chip made by NEC It is a pretty nice 3d chip and is capable of cranking out some great lighting, textures and animation. Technically it is not as powerful as a PS2 or an Xbox but there is not a major visual difference in most of the Dreamcast games.
The Dreamcast's CPU is a 64-bit RISC Hitachi SH-4 that runs at 200 Mhz. Not that impressive but all it has to do is to move around data and take care of the 3d chip. The sound chip is a 45 MHz Yamaha Super Intelligent sound processor with 2MB of dedicated RAM. The Dreamcast can crank out some really good music and sound effects. While it has a main memory of 16MB of RAM it is half the amount of RAM of the PS2 but it is over eight times that of the PSOne and it can handle complex 3d environments and arcade prefect 2d masterpieces.
Game are either developed for there low overhead SegaOS or the more PC like Windows CE but it is hidden to the end user. While Sega thought that the availability of a Microsoft OS and development kit would spurn lots of PC conversions and American software development most game development was done for the Dreamcast's SegaOS.
Sega used a unique disk format called GD-ROM that could store a Gig of data and were supposedly impossible to pirate but were eventually hacked and could be duplicated using normal CD-Rs. There is also a healthy development community of hackers making unofficial software for the Dreamcast long after the commercial demise of the hardware platform. Not going with a the then cutting edge DVD format was a cost saving move for Sega and it allowed them to sell the Dreamcast for at least a hundred buck less than the PS2 when it eventually came out but the hype and promise of the PS2 as a game player and a DVD player was the biggest hindrance to the market success of the Dreamcast. An import boot disk is all that is required to play Japanese games on a US Dreamcast so there is a whole bunch of good Dreamcast games that you can enjoy that never quite made it to Wal-Mart.
Rather than sticking with the Sega Saturn's non removable internal memory Sega wanted to do something like a memory card but more. Thus they came up with the Dreamcast VMU. The VMU is like a large memory card with a small LCD screen, controller pad and buttons. There are two ports on every Dreamcast controller for a VMU and the screen can be used to display game information and cute little graphics while the game is playing. Some games have mini games for the VMU that can be downloaded and played on it and it is possible to link two VMUs by plugging them together and play a mini game against another Sega-head. However the storage space on the VMU is limited to only 256k and the screen was very rinky-dink it is a very slick idea to combine a memory card, PDA and Tamagochi like mini game system. One fatal flaw with the VMUs is that they are powered by a watch battery that is drained when they are plugged into the Dreamcast during game play as well as playing with the VMU away from the Dreamcast. This tends to rapidly drain the battery and after a while you are stuck with only using it as a big memory card. Sony did something similar with the Sony Pocketstation but it never came out in the US. Rumble packs could be added to the back VMU slot to enable physical feedback.
Since the Dreamcast hardware was relativity inexpensive to produce and was quite powerful Sega Developed an Arcade platform based on the Dreamcast called the Sega NAOMI. This was a very slick move and it allowed almost instant home conversions of NAOMI games. Sega licensed the NAOMI system to several other Japanese game developers.
The gamepads were derived from the Sega Saturn Nights Analog controller and featured a nice analog stick, two VMU ports and the best analog trigger buttons I have ever used. However the Sega Saturn has six action buttons in a 3x3 fighting game friendly configuration and some viewed the first party Dreamcast pads a step in the wrong direction for fighting games. But there are a number of good third party game pads that remedy this. There were a plethora of controllers for the Dreamcast such as light guns, mice, keyboards, fishing rod controllers, steering wheels and musical maracas controllers.
But we have not gotten to the biggest and most unique feature of the Dreamcast that has not fully been replicated by other consoles. The Dreamcast was online from day one! Every Dreamcast was equipped with a modular 56k analog modem except the European units that had 36.6k ones. There was an official Internet connection disk that was updated to 3.0 eventually. It contained a dialing system, email client and web browser. The VMU was used to store network connection settings and browser bookmarks. Back in 1999 you could surf the real web and write and read real email on this little cool Sega game system. The browser did not support every web standard but it was still better than using Web TV. After you have established network connection settings using a standard dial up Internet account this data could be accessed by other games so that game developers could add chat rooms, message boards, downloadable and uploadable content, news rooms, and online gameplay. Sega also did a magnificent job in seeding game developers with the know how to integrate online gameplay into Dreamcast games. Sega did make a Broadband Ethernet Adapter for the Dreamcast but it did not come out until the very end of the Dreamcast life and is still very rare. If you have one... GIVE IT TO ME. Sega started the first MMORPG on a console with Phantasy Star Online on the Dreamcast and no other game developer has matched the Dreamcast's online package.
The Dreamcast reminds me of a music act that did not archive commercial success and a wide audience but their passion and contributions influenced generations to come. It was Sega finest hardware masterpiece and it is a shame that it is Sega's last home game system
Jake at March 11, 2004 
Games
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Comments
Interesting details here! I was wondering the import boot disk works vice versa too? to play non-jp games on a jp-DC?
Posted by: drcolossus of dataleak at March 11, 2004 6:02 AM
Mmm.. I &heart; my Dreamcast broadband adapter.
Posted by: l.m. orchard at March 11, 2004 7:08 AM
Usually import boot discs let you run games both way. However it can not do PAL only on NTSC and NTSC only on PAL but most DC games were made with NTSC. If I were in a PAL region I would get a Dreamcast VGA adapter and use a PC monitor that instead of a TV.
WAH I WANT A Dreamcast broadband adapter!!
Posted by: Jake at March 11, 2004 9:22 AM
I have to agree with you Jake the DC was an awesome system but SEGA's biggest problem was that they never seemed to be able to decide on what hardware to go with. They lost me and alot of other people after they came out with the 2 different versions of the Sega CD. From there is seems to snowball into a bunch of useless systems such as the 32X and Saturn. While they all were better then what was on the market, they did not have the game library to succeed. Which is too bad, I still think the Master System (Phantsy Star in particular) beat the Nintendo hands down.
Posted by: Larry at March 11, 2004 9:38 AM
The VMU was to be called the Virtual Memory Unit but there was a lawsuit stuck on Sega, who changed to it Visual Memory Unit.
The DC Swirl was blue in Europe because the Orange Swirl was taken by some furniture manufacturer/store who didn't know what a video game was.
And don't get me started on how the Dreamcast with killed in Australia/New Zealand due to crappy distributors.
Posted by: Matt at March 11, 2004 9:54 AM
I never owned a Dreamcast, but I dug how "arcade" like it felt. The sound and visuals screamed arcade. Especially the last sonic game they released for it.
Im not a huge fighter game fan, but the 2d fighters on there were definately fun to play.
I remember a friend of mine was working at a video game store and he got a japanese dreamcast as his first paycheck. He got an advanced model, and got house of the dead with the light gun. Damn that was cool. Then he got the boot disk, things were ok for him. He refuses to let go of his dreamcast system, yeah, I tried buying it off of him.
Posted by: Ray at March 11, 2004 9:55 AM
Damn you, I spent part of last night browsing ebay for a good Dreamcast package deal. The more I started thinking about it, the more I missed a good game of Guilt Gear X (import) or Last Blade 2.
Posted by: Kevin at March 11, 2004 11:34 AM
Well you can get Guilty Gear X, Space Channel 5, REZ , Capcom VS SNK2 and Marvel VS Capcom 2 on the Playstation 2.
Posted by: Jake at March 11, 2004 11:43 AM
I think I'm going to take up stalking I.M. Orchard for his BBA.
At first, the size of the controllers weren't too appealing to me, as I prefer a smaller controller. However, the DC appears bulky, but isn't. Unlike certain newer systems (AH-x-box-HEM), where I must tape makeshift finger extensions to my hand to reach all of the buttons. :-P
And I agree, serious flaw with the watch batteries in the VMU, (approx. 8 bucks a piece per battery). Although, definitely a powerful concept altogether.
Posted by: Jessica at March 12, 2004 1:08 PM
Dreamcast is for me still one example of high creativity in a market where creativity has become the exception.
While I have to admit that I don't see the sense or the need of a VMU I think it's a hell of an good idea!
I love my Dreamcast, I love my DC games and overall it's the second most played console in my home right after Nintendo products.
Posted by: Jim at March 14, 2004 6:42 AM
You can still go online with the dreamcast. There are many pso players out there. there are unoffical server that you can play on all you need a is a burnt compy of code breaker and your fine. I will give you a dial up connection if anyone wants one.
Posted by: Jordan at April 16, 2004 12:09 PM
I LURVE MY 'CAST! hehe, next to my Xbox and my NeoGeo, it's my most played and well-loved console. Jake, you're a good man so I don't wanna do this, but... you're mistaken. I have 15pages of specs on the 'Cast that conclusively prove the PS2 pales in comparison :(
Anyway, it's a moot point, cuz Sega (Home) are dead, the dreamcast is now a corpse and the PS2 is dancing on it's grave Stiil, MvC2 and PSO (heh, where's PSO, ps2?! Nah nah nah nah nah nah!!!) kick ass even today :D
Posted by: Sabin1981 at April 17, 2004 1:44 AM
It is a scientifically proven fact that playing with an Xbox will make hair grow on your palms
Posted by: Jake of 8bitjoystick.com at April 17, 2004 9:15 AM
