Chinese Dreamcast SD Adapters for sale

[Anthony817]

Thanks for the info. Ya, lots has changed for the good mostly. I just got into the DC homebrew scene a year ago when I bought my second Dreamcast after not owning one for 8 years.

[TuxTheWise]

Would I just ensure these binaries are unscrambled and boot them from the SD card? Or is there more to it where I would need to set up something to boot KOS and then the game?

You don't boot the binaries directly in DreamShell.

1) Make sure the binary is unscrambled. Rename it to 1ST_READ.BIN if necessary (there is some weird glitch in DS that makes it impossible to boot binaries with other file names).
2) Make sure IP.BIN has the media config as "CD-ROM1/1".
3) Create an iso with an injected IP.BIN: mkisofs -V DC_APP -G IP.BIN -joliet -rock -l -o image.iso ./dir_with_files.
4) You're ready to go.

If you want a ready-to-go image, you can get Dreamcast ISO-Image of SQRXZ (http://www.sqrxz.de/?page_id=26) to boot in DreamShell.

[D--]

No need to screw with LBA stuff anymore?

Going to give this a whirl in a few hours. I also ordered one of DIY's custom Dreamcasts to have as a backup unit. I have one at home that I already cannibalized every usable part out of, so it's time to get another anyway. May as well get one with VGA out and a built-in SD port

Since you seem to be really familiar with all this, is there a chance that they might support directly loading binaries in the future? Or, assuming some of their code is open, that we might see a Linux driver to get the SD port into /dev?

I can think of few things that would be more awesome than being able to throw /boot on a Dreamcast disk and have it mount the SD card device as / giving us a fully readable and writable Dreamcast-based Linux. I know I bought that keyboard and mouse for a reason.

[Anthony817]

Those are the ultimate DC's he is selling. If shipping wasn't so high I would try and get one myself.

[TuxTheWise]

No need to screw with LBA stuff anymore?

95% of the homebrew has the data session starting at LBA 0, so no further hacking is necessary. Of course you need to hack for KATANA games.

Since you seem to be really familiar with all this, is there a chance that they might support directly loading binaries in the future?

I'm pretty sure it's possible, and maybe easy since SWAT made the hard stuff already.

[D--]

You boot Dreamshell, click on File Manager, then SD, and then click on the file you want on your sd card.

D--, would you mind posting us some pixs?

File Manager does not have a listing for "SD". Only "SOCK", "VMU", "CD", "RAM" and "PTY"

I tried both my units.

This is with DreamShell 4.0 Beta 4 (CDI Image)

I did not try DreamShell 4.0 Beta 4 (Form SD Loader), which appears to be for loading the OS from an SD card.

Edit: Tried Beta 4 (Form SD Loader). System gets stuck on a white screen and the GD-ROM drive goes crazy. Thought I put the files in the wrong place, so tried putting DS in the card root as well as in an actual folder called DS.

Neither worked

[TuxTheWise]

You boot Dreamshell, click on File Manager, then SD, and then click on the file you want on your sd card.

D--, would you mind posting us some pixs?

File Manager does not have a listing for "SD". Only "SOCK", "VMU", "CD", "RAM" and "PTY"

I tried both my units.

This is with DreamShell 4.0 Beta 4 (CDI Image)

I did not try DreamShell 4.0 Beta 4 (Form SD Loader), which appears to be for loading the OS from an SD card.

Edit: Tried Beta 4 (Form SD Loader). System gets stuck on a white screen and the GD-ROM drive goes crazy. Thought I put the files in the wrong place, so tried putting DS in the card root as well as in an actual folder called DS.

Neither worked

Apparently DS couldn't access the /sd. I use DS with SD Loader and it works like a charm (files must be inside DS folder). The SD could be formatted either as FAT as FAT32.

It looks like you're using a not SPI compatible SD Card. I wouldn't use SDHC if I were you. SPI support is not in microSD specifications, but if you get one of those cheap microSD that comes with "big" SD adapter, they must be compatible with it.

Get a 1/2/4gb Kingston SD and it should work :p

[D--]

I got it working. I was already using a Kingston 4GB card. FYI, you can hardly trust the Kingston label because they are just slapping it on all manner of parts. I've seen entire shipments of Kingston SD cards fail in devices because some enterprising employee down in south China decided to re-run all the parts that failed on the assembly line during the day and sell them off with valid serial numbers ...

Anyway, the mistake was in the burning. Most things work fine when I burn RAW/DAO in Alcohol 120%, but this had to be DAO/SAO with the "leave disk open for further writing" option checked. I found instructions on a Chinese Dreamcast forum frequented by the Taobao guy.

Also, for anyone buying these adapters, the metal does not really close right by hacking it out of another much wider connector (saw pictures of the process on the forum). You have to give it a really good push into the back of your Dreamcast to make sure it connects right.

[Anthony817]

Do you think you can get some pictures showing us that it works, or better yet, make a movie of it working on your Dreamcast?

[D--]

I have no way to make or share movies.

Will take some pictures soon. Sorry I forgot about it the last week. I ended up kind of busy with a talk I'm preparing for December, so this thread ended up buried in my bookmarks.

It works basically like you would expect. All he's doing is building the interface designed by the Russian team using cheap plastic parts.