Subject: Re: [linuxsh-dev] custom Dreamcast parallel port
To: Mike Frysinger <vapier@gentoo.org>
From: Adrian McMenamin <adrian@mcmen.demon.co.uk>
List: port-dreamcast
Date: 05/28/2004 22:40:26
On Friday 28 May 2004 13:10, Mike Frysinger wrote:
> sorry for the mass mail but my google searching has netted me nothing :=
(
>
> i've been looking at all the custom hardware hacks people have done wit=
h
> their dreamcasts and what many of them do is use the parallel port, as =
can
> be seen in the following pic:
> http://home.b00.itscom.net/ikehara/dc/pictures/p0206n002.jpeg
>
> i havent been able to find any directions on how to build this but sinc=
e
> many places mention the modem, i imagine they used the connector off th=
e
> modem board and just soldered the wires into that ... does anyone out t=
here
> know of a place with some good directions on how to build this myself ?=
=20
> i'd rather work off something that someone has done before (and thus pr=
oven
> to work) than just break it myself and have to buy another one :)
> -mike
>

For a little while in 2002 I was perhaps the most active Dreamcast linux=20
kernel hacker - writing a device driver or two and even a filesystem for =
the=20
VMU device (though I was standing on the shoulders of giants). Change of =
job=20
etc meant all that had to stop and there were a few others still going, b=
ut=20
my assessment is that the DC hacking scence - both Linux and homebrew stu=
ff=20
generally - has more or less died in the last six months.

My impression is that there are still a few hardy souls hacking away at N=
etBSD=20
though. But by and large the DC is finished even for hobbyist hackers lik=
e=20
myself.

A pity, but that's the way it goes - certainly no commercial support was =
ever=20
likely and the prohibitive cost of the nic for the DC meant serious=20
developers were always going to be thin on the ground.

Adrian