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BSD Operating Systems

NetBSD Supports SEGA's Broadband Adapter 83

Posted by timothy from the why-is-inoshiro-in-my-apartment? dept.
hubertf writes: "NetBSD now supports the SEGA Broadband (i.e. ethernet) Adapter. Check out the screendump of someone telnetting into a Dreamcast running NetBSD!" Considering that this adapter only came out a short while ago, this is pretty fast work. Next stop: electric toothbrushes.
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NetBSD Supports SEGA's Broadband Adapter

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  • that altho a port of X will take a while, as soon as someone ports SVGAlib the games library for this gaming machine(that is what most people bought it for afterall) will grow by an extremely large chunk. I wonder how many of the good ole' games could get mass exposeure this way. Hell, you could run an ass load of console emulators and play em' the way you were spose too, on a TV. Time to hit up Ebay and find one for even less then 99$.
  • Better job for a Dreamcast : DSL/Cable modem Router/Firewall/DHCP server.

    Think about it - if they're selling for $99 and you could download an .ISO off the web to do the above over FreeBSD wouldn't you take that over one of those Linksys boxes ? After all, the Linksys devices can't play games for crap! :)
  • once the netbsd port catches up, we need a beowulf of these. maybe its time

    And we thought we had a problem when Iraq was buying the Playstation 2s...

  • IP ELF image loader [min.net]

    Kernel boot 1 [min.net]

    Kernel boot 2 [min.net]

    Wish I had more, but I don't have an NFS root for it just yet. (: The console is surprisingly legible for something running on a TV screen, though.

  • You must be running Windows.

    Also, your Dreamcast must be flaming pile of plastic. My Dreamcast gets too hot too fast.
  • Why is it that people automatically assume that the hardware in a game box is faultless and PC hardware is riddled with problems?

    My Dreamcast has been on pretty much since I bought it (9-Sep-1999). I wish I could say the same about my PC.

  • Well, no MAME yet, but I imagine someone will pick it up soon. In the mean time, check out this:

    http://boob.thegypsy.com/emulators.html

    NES, SNES, Gameboy, Genesis/Megadrive, PlayStation, NeoGeo pocket color...
  • It's hard to imagine a firewall with one ethernet port. Well, I guess that pretty much stops traffic from getting through.

    As far as I know, the Dreamcast (is intended to) only support(s) one adapter, no room for two. Sure, someone will find a way to hack at it, but not for a while.
  • Why pay $99 for the console and then a whopping $60.00 [ebworld.com] for the network adapter? I think if Sega is liquidating their hardware or whatever, they need to lower the price on these babies about %50 or more.

    I own a Dreamcast, but I'd never pay that much ...
  • Dead in production or not, there're supposedly 1.2 million unsold Dreamcast systems that'll still be in the retail pipeline. With the machine at $99 and the broadband adapter for sale through the Sega Store [sega.com] for $59, you can get a really killer new toy, cheap. And I've gotta say, it annoys me sometimes that all the talk here in Slashdot seems to expect that geeks will all be making the Silicon Valley bucks. A lot of us don't, a lot of us -won't-, and we (Well, okay, I) get annoyed that every Cool New Geek Toy(tm) seems to cost an entire month's pay.

    I just spent the cash on my Dreamcast (Got it at $149, will get it price-match refunded in a couple weeks, I'm sure) and will be shelling out for the broadband adapter soon. There aren't a lot of Just Because I Can(tm) toys for geeks making $8.50 an hour part-time working the tech support desk at a college.

    And there's another rant. Gah! Working for an MCSE in a shop with two mission critical Linux boxen. Fun, usually, to be the only half-clued one, but kinda depressing. :)

  • Not quite what you're looking for, but check out http://mc.pp.se/dc/dreamsnes/ [mc.pp.se]
    --
  • I remember seeing Keyboards + internet connectivity for the Sega Saturn units.

    I wonder... could you do a whole client(saturn)/server(dreamcast) setup entirely of Sega gaming units?

    Turn a sega nomad into a networked palm-like device, and you could have Sonic be your IS!
  • most of the responces to this miss a very important point, every dreamcast has the same exact hardware. that means once one person correctly configs a dreamcast for any use, it is a simple matter of copying those settings, that is why console systems are more reliable, only one hardware configuration.(or 2 if you have a choice between modem and broadband, but the point still stands)
  • System specs are at http://www.dreamcast.net/systeminfo/ [dreamcast.net]. CPU runs at 200Mhz, which may sound slow, but remember it's not an Intel processor. RAM: 16 MB main RAM, 8 MB video RAM, 2 MB sound RAM.

    AFAIK, you can't add a hard drive, you burn it to a CD-ROM and NFS mount the root fs.

    Funcoland is still around.

    I'm constantly surprised that people think it's easier to post a question than do a simple Google search [google.com].
    --
  • no need for the broadband adaptor, you can just use the modem. and most tvs come with the a/v connects that dc uses these days, so it isnt really a bad idea.
  • hmmmm?
  • Any chance someone can get apache to run on one of these things?

    ----
  • Yes the dreamcast may be dying, BUT there is the set top box being released that plays DC games, as well as rumors that xbox will be backwards compatible with DC, so in fact this could be the first xbox port. that'd be interesting.
  • Just because they aren't making any more doesn't mean that they don't want to make money on the ones already out there.

    ----
  • You don't follow the dcdev scene I take it.

    That 'boot sector' your describing, called by most the IP.BIN, resides in the first 16 sectors (32k) of the first data session of the cd does NOT contain any specific information that Sega could consider 'copyrighted' Check here [mc.pp.se] for more information about the 'boot sector'. There IS a checksum of the boot sector, however, but since we know the checksum routine, making our own boot sector is trivially easy. The checksum key is stored in the header itself, so just make that key match your header.

    Secondly, the screen dump you should have just read, the one linked in the story, explicitly states that it was uploaded with the IP slave. The IP slave is a program written my Marcus Comstedt (get used to hearing that name a bunch. He should be considered the father of DC development in all of its forms, with heavy contributions from Dan P. and Andrew K. and a few others. You'll also notice Marcus' name as the main readon NetBSD works on the DC at all) that resides on a bootable CD. You turn the DC on, it loads the slave program from disc, and then you then upload the NetBSD binary(s) through the ethernet adaptor. The slave runs the program once the uploaded .elf is complete.


    In others words, they can easily distribute the NetBSD files if they wish to without stepping on any of Sega's toes.


    For those interesting in Dreamcast development, be sure to check out
    Marcus' Site [mc.pp.se]
    Jules's site [julesdcdev.com]
    Dan's site [allusion.net]
    For the best information available from people who KNOW, now people who post on Slashdot.

  • Hey, I bought my Dreamcast for 150$ also, just about a month and a half ago (around x-mas time) can I still get a rebate? and if so, where? thanks

  • PCI? Lummie. (Score:5)

    by WasterDave ( 20047 ) <davep@z e d k e p.com> on Saturday February 03, 2001 @03:11AM (#459625)
    The real story's in the dmesg, look how many drivers they've got up:

    maple0 at shb0
    Dreamcast Controller at maple0 port 0 not configured
    mkbd0 at maple0 port 3: US keyboard
    wskbd0 at mkbd0: console keyboard
    pvr0 at shb0: 640 x 480, 16bpp, NTSC, composite
    wsdisplay0 at pvr0: console (80x30, vt100 emulation), using wskbd0
    gdrom0 at shb0
    g2bus0 at shb0
    gapspci0 at g2bus0: SEGA GAPS PCI Bridge
    pci0 at gapspci0 bus 0
    pci0: memory space enabled
    rtk0 at pci0 dev 0 function 0: SEGA Broadband Adapter
    rtk0: interrupting at SH4 irq 11
    rtk0: Ethernet address 00:d0:f1:02:ab:30
    ukphy0 at rtk0 phy 7: Generic IEEE 802.3u media interface
    ukphy0: OUI 0x000000, model 0x0000, rev. 0
    ukphy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, auto

    So: The controller, keyboard, console keyboard, the powervr2 accelerator (!), the gdrom thingy, a PCI bridge that I had no idea was in the dreamcast, the PCI bus, finally what looks like a realtek ethernet chip.

    Realtek? Shit, they must've been reckoning on cashing in big time here. Ten brownie points for anyone making a 'make yerself a sega broadband connector for only $5' webpage.

    Anyway, immense kudos to the NetBSD team (@shagedelic.org ??). If this is for real, I'm well impressed guys.

    Dave :)
  • Remember the /. article [slashdot.org]the other day about Brazil rolling out $200 pcs to the poor? This is even better! The Dreamcast is only $99, has a broadband connection, and best of all, it runs UNIX. So not only can the poor surf the web and check their e-mail, but they get the skill set needed to be sysadmins! Talks about escaping from a life of poverty...
  • Next stop: electric toothbrushes

    Just think of what would happen if some 31337 h4x0r broke into your toothbrush while you were using it to brush your teeth. My guess is that the results would be rather painful.

    ---
    Check in...OK! Check out...OK!

  • Rising to the bait... (Score:3)

    by main() ( 147152 ) on Saturday February 03, 2001 @03:33AM (#459628)
    Where do you people who have probably never contributed *anything* to *anyone*, *ever*
    get off...

    Oh fuck it, I really can't be bothered.

    Suffice to say, great work NetBSD camp, you seem to be doing pretty well despite the drivel some
    people post in response to any *BSD stories here on Slashdot.

    Si

    --
    "Make them stop, please"
  • Just need a dnetc client for this, and voila. Perhaps we can run snort or nessus on it too :) "Yes sure us l33t hax0rs have the latest tools to detect intrusion on your network.." I could imagine the looks on their faces when i jack in a dreamcast to their network..
  • Durring the initial /. announcement, I thought it was a stupied idea. Now, after seeing things being ported to it even quicker. I am wondering if I should do it ... even for shits and giggles.

    Does anyone know some system specs for it ? CPU mhz, RAM, etc ? Also, how the hell do you get this on there ?! I assume you would need to add a hard drive somewhere in there.

    I figured I could pick up a few from FunCo land (Are they still around ? :) or some place like that for less then $99.
    until (succeed) try { again(); }

  • Perhaps even better is that they can get the hand-eye coordination skills as well on this (gaming) platform ;-)

    Moz.
  • Not nessesarily. Many DSL providers use PPPoE (PPP on Ethernet). Plug the DSL modem into a hub. Plug the dreamcast into the hub.
    Packets go into the Dreamcast in TCP/IP, go out in PPPoE. Because nothing else speaks to the DSL modem, you've got a firewall.
  • Wilfredo Sanchez and the other programmers used FreeBSD sources for it. All binary utilities react exactly like in FreeBSD (I use both systems at home). ipfw is included, pptp with FreeBSD-patch works like expected, etc.
    It looks like BSD and acts like BSD, maybe it is BSD?

    (I'm a MacOS X programmer)

  • I find this commentary a bit... well... presumptuous. Assuming that OpenBSD to NetBSD posts on usenet is "5 to 1" is purely conjecture. I'm not going to make a assumption of my own to avoid sounding like a hypocrite, but couldn't it be remotely possible that a great deal more people use OpenBSD then stated. Keep in mind that data can be transfered by many means on all degrees of media, I can obtain software of ANY type for free... Whether it be open source or corporate conglomerate Microsoft's garbage. All it takes is a comment by one of Microsoft's hired guns to make a huge number of people run around like they just had their heads cut off. Open source is far from dead, my friend... Don't you forget that!
  • PCs are filled with legacy hardware.

    Point of contention. PCs are full of legacy technology, not legacy hardware or designs. The dual PIII system I put together last summer has ISA slots, but they're not ISA components or chips from an AT. Remember, even a new house has a load of legacy technology in it -- flush toilets, running water, central heat are all much older than the ISA slot.

    I'd wager that the Dreamcast architecture has the designed reliability of a TV, stereo or any other consumer grade electronics item, including home PCs. That its design features components lacking the ability to integrate with older technology isn't a guarntee of its stability or suitability for anything.
  • Anyone know what the chances are that Sega can be convinced to release the Dreamcast SDK/specs to open source? why don't interested parties contact Sega at: http://www.sega.com/sega/suits/contactusform.jhtml select "Other" as the Subject of your Inquiry so all requests are routed to the same email queue...there's strength in numbers ;-)
  • This is definitely for real. I have my dreamcast up and running NetBSD. There are still a couple of stability problems with the pmap code, but right now they are usually only triggered in the compiler. (e.g. when running a self-hosted compiler)
    I will see about taking a picture with my digital camera. So what would it take to convince anyone?
    So, if you want to test boot yours, just for fun, go to the following URL:
    NetBSD rocks! [roadsign.com]
  • They don't make Dreamcasts anymore. Hence, this argument is fairly moot- they're trying to liquidate- if you're willing to buy, I don't think they care what you're going to use it for.
  • The only drivers for maple bus peripherals are for the keyboard. The framework is there to add your own though. I would bet a mouse will be supported soon also. TV out works, as the pvr driver doesn't really differentiate between the TV and VGA box. (yet) There is no sound support yet, and I don't of any XFree86 driver for the PowerVR2 chipset. The dreamcast hackers out there have info though, so someone just needs to write a driver. :-)
  • PCs are full of legacy technology, not legacy hardware or designs.

    I bet to differ. Legacy technology and legacy design are the same in most instances. Look at the way PCs still handle those interrupts. There's still nothing close to UMA in a PC either. Thus, it is laden with legacy hardware and design as well as technology.

  • Really? Can you put two adapters on this? I got the impression there was only one port on which to connect the 'broadband adapter'. Wouldn't you need two?
  • From the mailing list archives [netbsd.org].
  • Some of the technology in their SDK is likely licensed from other venders and Sega wouldn't have the rights to release it publicly. There is an interesting message [netbsd.org] on the NetBSD Dreamcast port mailing list however.
  • Try a 'ifconfig en0 192.168.0.1 netmask 255.255.255.0' on BSD, Darwin, Linux. One will fail, guess which.
    And I don't think pptp without patch would work in this emulator (haven't tried it).

  • That 'boot sector' your describing, called by most the IP.BIN, resides in the first 16 sectors (32k) of the first data session of the cd does NOT contain any specific information that Sega could consider 'copyrighted'

    Then what's this [mc.pp.se] by Marcus?

    0300-36FF 8C008300-8C00B6FF SEGA license screen code

    This is the entry point which the ROM calls after both IP.BIN and 1ST_READ.bin have been loaded. The code here displays the SEGA logo and message "PRODUCED BY OR UNDER LICENSE FROM SEGA ENTERPRISES, LTD." for about 6 seconds and then transfers control to Bootstrap 1. Note that the code in this area can not be modified. The ROM checks every byte of it against a copy in the ROM, and will not boot the disk if there is a difference.

    (My emphasis.) Or is this old information? (I'm aware of Sega v. Accolade, but that was settled out of court, setting no precedent.)
    Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them? [pineight.com]
  • Actually it you who didn't count. Fuck You.
    Oh-ho-ho! It you who give good comeback! It him who driven into shame!
  • This is not entirely true. While the core hardware most likely remains identical, the GD/CD reader units are sourced from multiple manufacturers. The one in my DC is a Samsung i think. IIRC, the first were Yamaha.

  • So the Dreamcast is not dead [slashdot.org] after all. Perhaps it can be made into a Firewall? Run X on your big screen TV? Maybe even to emulate PS2? ;-)

    ====

  • Re:MAME! (Score:2)

    by slim ( 1652 )
    Who moderated this as "funny"? I'd *love* a MAME port on Dreamcast. I think it's eminently doable, too. Maybe 1500 games is a little ambitious: an initial Dreamcast port would not be as fast as MAME on the equivalent PC (because it would use C emulation cores instead of the faster x86 ASM cores), meaning only older games would work, and in addition many of the newer MAME games have enormous ROM images which would not fit in a Dreamcast's RAM.

    Nonetheless, all those Pac Man / Invaders / Galaga / Q-Bert era games should work a treat, and I really hope someone does the port.
    --
  • Here's what happens:

    H4H4H4H!!!! 1 g07 r007 c4n5l, 5ux0r!!!!!

  • Jobs for Dreamcasts (Score:4)

    by h2odragon ( 6908 ) on Saturday February 03, 2001 @01:35AM (#459651) Homepage

    Name server. Even with the high possibility of future BIND exploits, who will go to the trouble of creating shellcode for a Dreamcast? "I can't find the mailserver?" ... "Oh, sorry, I was playing games"

    Considering that the reliability and durability of these boxes is going to be far better than the average bits of PC hardware, I think they'd be very well suited to be credit card processors. Even if you can't hook up a modem to them directly they could make use of a terminal server and a seperate network segment. In that application the lack of disk will be a plus, "extra security" and all.

    The thought of businesses across the nation depending on $99 video game consoles and really cool hacks for their income just appeals, somehow...

  • ...that it was like yesterday that i had mentioned something to the tune of, once the netbsd port catches up, we need a beowulf of these. maybe its time to try it ;)

    as soon as the netbsd port is stable, im considering getting about 10 of these together to try it. hopefully theyll be a bit cheaper by then, not that they arent already ridiculously cheap since they announced the death of them.

    .brad


    Drink more tea
    organicgreenteas.com [organicgreenteas.com]
  • Why is it that people automatically assume that the hardware in a game box is faultless and PC hardware is riddled with problems? Its probably true that game boxes have more problems than the average PC. I mean does it matter if a few pixels are in the wrong place when you are playing mortal combat? Also, being closed hardware and all any of the big bugs are just "limitations of the system" and are just worked around.

    I find it hard to believe that the game companies took very much time to make sure there systems had any significant amount of uptime. I mean really if a game locks up I usually decide the box is too hot or something and shut if off for a while. I have also seen bugs in console games. People just need to realize that PC's and game consoles are electronic devices and all prone to the same types of problems. I think the only reason people think that PC's are less stable than game consoles is because they expect more from the pc and run wierder combinations of software.

    Figure it out people, if console systems were really more reliable than the pc systems in use today, pc's would be using the console hardware so that they ran better.

  • I know of one BSD that got more than 100,000 users...
    (darwin)
  • Nah, your Dreamcast firewall would keep 'em out, and if they got past that, you could put a honey^H^H^H^H^H coffeepot on the network to distract 'em long enough to detect the intrusion ;-)

    --

  • Anyone know what the chances are that Sega can be convinced to release the Dreamcast SDK/specs to open source?

    Sega heavily subsidises Dreamcast hardware - it makes a loss on each unit sold, the idea being that they then make back that cash selling games for it.
    So how would it benefit them to sell Dreamcasts to people who aren't going to buy any games?
  • Um, until someone puts up that "DC ethernet DIY for $5" web page the broadband adaptor is only available for $60 directly from Sega. That makes it a $160 and that is without mouse and keyboard. I believe those are proprietary so without a monitor you're getting close to $200. Of course I would highly recommend a VGA adaptor so you can run it with a VGA monitor (mine is actually a VGA switch, would cost about $50 if I hadn't found it on ebay with the console). The details do get annoying but I hope everyone else buys one also because it is the best console available right now and an even better deal than when I bought one.

  • they don't have binaries available for this dreamcast port.

    And they won't. The BIOS checks the boot sector against a copy in ROM, and if it isn't bit-for-bit identical, it won't boot the disc. "So just copy the boot sector in the ISO!" Sorry, the Dreamcast boot sector is copyright SEGA.


    Like Tetris? Like drugs? Ever try combining them? [pineight.com]
  • >Remember, even a new house has a load of legacy
    >technology in it flush toilets, running water,
    >central heat are all much older than the ISA slot

    Well, this is a non argument. Flush toilets, while older than most anything else, are still the best thing available. The legacy hardware in this comparison would be the outhouse. I don't see many outhouses there days. If toilets were like PCs, each flush toilet would come with an optional lever that just opened a flap on the bottom and dumped your waste into the ground, in case you didn't feel like "flushing". That's legacy hardware.

    Legacy hardware is that which is kept to acomodate out of date and outclassed hardware. Old hardware that still does the job better than anything else is just... hmm, pre-modern? Classic? Traditional?
  • I am shure the Operatins system would be fine, however was the dreamcast really ment to be on 24x7? mine hasn't really been on that much and
    allready the fan is making more noise then it should. Also I never give more then a year or two on cdroms working reliably. Should hear the poor thing grind away at what some of the games make it do.

    NIC drivers are a good step ... now produce a cd that will bootp/dhcp off the net so I can setup this thing as an remote xterm and run everything from the real server.

    -Cookie Monster CRUNCH!
  • So you can telnet to a dreamcast. That is good. I salute you! What else can anyone do with it? Can you input from Dreamcast peripherals? Can you display anything to the telvision? Sound? 3d graphics? What are the limits of the Dreamcast haxorz? PS: You are my haxor hero! Good job!
  • You know, I had the same thought...about a half hour after I posted the message. As far as I know you can only put one adapter in the Dreamcast, at least without voiding the warranty.
  • I would love to start playing with this, and eventually get an MP3 player running on it, accessing my MP3 library (approximately 200 of my CD's ripped to MP3) via NFS. Anyone know where to find a NetBSD ISO image for the Dreamcast?
  • Not only is it $59.95 on the Sega Store, it's also backordered [sega.com].
  • With all this porting going I couldn't help but think how cool it'd be if someone made a BitchX client port for the Dreamcast because the regular irc client that they have sucks and maybe you could be able to save your BX settings to the VMU, that'd be awesome, anyway, just a thought, lemme know whatcha guys think
  • http://www.dcemulation.com/
  • No offense man, but your post is totally misinformed. The success of BSD is way harder to gauge than linux/windoze because you can't base it totally off of cds sold, or oem licenses. I'd say the majority of BSD users don't bother w/ CD installs, and all that jazz, and just do an FTP install, and then cvsup their src tree. Theo is probably estimating that figure based on the number of cd orders they've had. Most of your post is complete BS. BSDi continues to get Venture capital, and people keep on trying to convince Theo to commercialize OpenBSD.

    None of the BSDs are dead. Just because there aren't multi-billion (maybe only multimillion now) dollar *BSD companies, doesn't necessarily mean it's a poor OS or that no one is using it. BSD has taken a different approach, and please don't deem that as an unsuccessful "dead" OS.

    Cheers.
  • ...someone is supporting the BBA - because Sega isn't.
  • IHBT. IAHAND.
    red ink flows like a river of blood.

    Funny how 3 organisations with no revenue can make a loss.
    For all practical purposes, NetBSD is dead.

    Except the practical purpose that "NetBSD is being actively supported, runs on almost anything, and this will continue for the forseeable future". Which, TBH, is all that matters. It is a UNIX so most free stuff does run on it and will run on it for the forseeable future.
  • "Even if you can't hook up a modem to them directly"

    Nope. It has a built in modem, and with a homemade serial cable you can hook another up to it. Would make a cheep dial-in pool if you so desiered.
  • Well, the Dreamcast architecture was designed recently. The "PC" architecture contains throwbacks to the original 8086, released in 1978.

    PCs are filled with legacy hardware. Not saying that this directly causes them to be less stable, as I have no real proof of it, but there's plently of anedoctal evidence to back that up.

    Now, your argument "why don't people use game consoles over PCs?" is certainly valid. The answer is that when the PC architecture (ia32, x86, whatever you want to call it- you can be a pendant and argue against any one of those terms) doesn't cut it for a user, they get hardware that's generally considered to be nicer. Like a Sun machine. Or an Alpha.

  • A very cool piece of work. I'm amazed at how fast they got the BBA running!

    Now all I'd need is an MP3 client to hook up to my server and my DC would make a very nice jukebox/net appliance combo. I WANT THIS!

  • Re:NetBSD first? (Score:3)

    by bugg ( 65930 ) on Saturday February 03, 2001 @05:43AM (#459673) Homepage
    I think you're filled with stereotypes.

    There's a huge difference between "Do everything right" and "Don't be the first" - Don't believe all of the propoganda that everyone tells you. (OpenBSD is the secure one, FreeBSD is the fast one, and NetBSD is the portable one that's always the last to get new toys) -- heck, NetBSD has _always_ blazed trails!

  • Um, yeah, but if you connect the modem, you have to remove the ethernet adapter, since they share the same connector... Kind of makes it difficult to do much, unless you mean that the Dreamcast should act as a self-contained dial-in server...

  • MAME! (Score:4)

    by jfedor ( 27894 ) <jfedor@jfedor.org> on Saturday February 03, 2001 @05:59AM (#459675) Homepage
    We need a Dreamcast port of MAME [mame.net]. This would mean over 1500 new games for the dying console. :)

    -jfedor
  • Where do you people who have probably never contributed *anything* to *anyone*, *ever* get off...

    Sounds like you have issues friend. Thats alot of hostility for one /. post. Please, seek council.

  • tech support desk at a college.

    Ill trade you my $75k per year:

    "mine the widget production data from Oracle and stick it in a pie chart on a webpage"

    job anyday for your

    "meet interesting people with something to say about the universe" if you'd like.

  • Here's the (pre-written/generic) response I got - not very encouraging: Dear Mr. Giorgio, Thank you for e-mailing Sega Technical Support! We are very appreciative that you took the time to send us your comments and suggestions. Responses from our customers are the pillars of our success and help shape our future endeavors. Thank you for your feedback! To get the maximum gaming experience, we strongly recommend only using Sega licensed products, such as controllers. Win a full size Sega Arcade machine! Go online and register your new Dreamcast at www.prodreg.com/sega/productreg_askage.html. -Reuben Sega of America Technical Support
  • Okay. The NetBSD and other potential of the Dreamcast hardware is immense. You could take the DC, set it up with a small LCD screen and perhaps soon make a car MP3 player with a little hardware hacking to reduce disc vibration.

    But, I just spent $30 to make my DC hook in with my cheapo 5.1 surround system, and my VGA monitor. Then I got Phantasy Star Online.

    As much as I expect to have great fun playing around with new ideas and new uses for the Dreamcast hardware in the next year or so... It's going to be awfully damn hard to tear me away from what ten minutes of wandering has already shown to be one of the best MMORPGish experiences ever released. This game IS the perfect example that Sega does games best.

    As to the critic telling me to study... Hey, I got a 3.97 last semester, get off my back. :)

  • haha, no shit, i feel so screwed after buying the BBA only for Phantasy Star Online, but finding out that I can't use it, so I'm screwed out of $100+ :/

    -motardo
  • Ya know those pills your psychiatrist told ya to take? Ya, those. Maybe you should take them you paranoid mofo...
  • Compiling BitchX (and other applications) should be as easy as "cd /usr/pkgsrc/net/bitchx ; make install". Or if you find someone to make you a precompiled binary, running pkg_add.

    See http://www.netbsd.org/packages/ ;-)

    - Hubert
  • Great work guys! Hopefully, this means that we can see Dreamcasts being used in corporate environments for stuff like firewalls, proxies (obviously without cache), name-servers and static web pages that rarely change, as well as OSS games. This could prolong the DC's live indefinitely.

    Sure, Sega wants to abandon it, but I'm sure plenty of geeks would kill to develop for Dreamcast BSD. Especially at the price :)

  • NetBSD faces a bleak future at best. In fact there may be no future for NetBSD. NetBSD is dying. Things are looking bad for *BSD in general. As many of us are already aware, *BSD continues to lose market share; red ink flows like a river of blood. NetBSD is perhaps the most in endangered. Let's look at the numbers.

    OpenBSD leader Theo states that there are 7000 users of OpenBSD. How many users of NetBSD are there? Let's see. The number of OpenBSD versus NetBSD posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 NetBSD users. BSD/OS posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of NetBSD posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of BSD/OS. A recent article put FreeBSD at about 80 percent of the BSD market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 FreeBSD users. This is consistent with the number of FreeBSD Usenet posts. Due to the troubles of Walnut Creek, abysmal sales and so on, FreeBSD went out of business and was taken over by BSDI who sell another troubled OS. Major marketing surveys show that BSD has steadily declined in market share. BSD is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If BSD is to survive at all it will be among OS hobbyists (i.e. those who dabble with Minix, Xinu, etc). *BSD continue to falter. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, NetBSD is dead.

    I love you for the way you warm up each and every BSD thread. We can always count on you, no matter what else comes along. Keep up the good work.
    Cheers.

  • Since the price has dropped down to $99 this hardware is a steal. I'm sure more mods/hacks will come out for it in time.
  • No one is to say the "B" word phrase

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