DreamArena 3 - New Browser Development

[Roareye]

Latest preview of the site so far (Real Hardware, 33k modem). The community pages have had a layout update so that they can scroll without breaking the visual theme, this makes it compatible with Passport and allows me to shrink the number of pages down (especially for the games lists). The highlight colour for the navigation bar and announcements has also been changed to match the Dreamarena blue colours (they were red before).

The biggest change is in the retro (Dream Library) page. I had two versions, one which was an isometric future city with columns and another badly designed page that gave me easy access to the Dream Library links. The second page is still seen here when I disconnect (more about that in a minute), however the website now takes you to a much nicer Arcade page!

https://youtu.be/Psoi2x9zqRA

Still trying to get the boot up codes to work via the webpage directly, but -drez01- got them working with a version of the old page stored to the disc, so we're one step closer. This is running on a version of Dreamkey 3, which drez modded to include the Dream Library.

Let us know what you think ^_^

[DarkHarlow]

Latest preview of the site so far (Real Hardware, 33k modem). The community pages have had a layout update so that they can scroll without breaking the visual theme, this makes it compatible with Passport and allows me to shrink the number of pages down (especially for the games lists). The highlight colour for the navigation bar and announcements has also been changed to match the Dreamarena blue colours (they were red before).

The biggest change is in the retro (Dream Library) page. I had two versions, one which was an isometric future city with columns and another badly designed page that gave me easy access to the Dream Library links. The second page is still seen here when I disconnect (more about that in a minute), however the website now takes you to a much nicer Arcade page!

https://youtu.be/Psoi2x9zqRA

Still trying to get the boot up codes to work via the webpage directly, but -drez01- got them working with a version of the old page stored to the disc, so we're one step closer. This is running on a version of Dreamkey 3, which drez modded to include the Dream Library.

Let us know what you think ^_^

Very good progress. This is going to be essential in all Dreamcasts connected to the internet. Dream Libray seems incredible to me. That Dreamcast was capable of something like this ... Congratulations, thanks for the effort and for allowing me to translate it when the time comes. I am very excited about this project.

[Roareye]

Just learnt how to rip raw files from discs, so I'm looking at features that are hidden within the Dream Passport Premier disc. Some interesting features to try and recover.

The Dream Passport Premier browser disc is split into several folders, one for each of the demo games (Columns, Flicky, Puyo Puyo, Guru Guru Onsen, Dream Flyer), one for Dream Library itself and then 3 different skin folders (SKIN1, SKIN2, SKIN3).

PRIVATE MESSAGING
Firstly Blayer98 helped me see a little more of the private messaging system. A particular link allowed me to write a message to someone, however the message could not be sent as the main server is down. Blayer98 says the system is likely SSL based, which is way above my basic HTML knowhow - does anyone know anything about systems such as these?

VOICE CALLING
Found in the GIF files of the Passport Premier browser are three sizes of a phone dialler. They're identical outside of a small visual size change. On DC the buttons will light up as you hover the mouse over them. It uses the following EMBED code to bring up the VOIP functions;

Code: Select all

<EMBED TYPE="application/voip-menuplugin" NAME="menu" HIDDEN="true"> 

Alongside the number dialler, there are three red buttons. The first one is to call, that doesn't work right now.
Below it is a button with a dollar sign (not yen, oddly), which I assume you used to top up the card. It leads to a cgi, but I know nothing about that filetype (I know others do). I have the file name, but the URL doesn't reveal the fill code, unfortunately;

Code: Select all

http://isao.net/phone/DCGACEnter.cgi?lo.......
"...." after the main code is where I lose the URL, however DCGACEnter.cgi is definitely the file it attempts to connect to.

Lastly there's a function to request your Login ID and Password for your Dreamcall Card. I've input information into there but it doesn't go anywhere, doesn't seem to try either.
Because I have the HTML pages and the images, I was able to translate and upload a version of this for access on the Dream Passport Premier browser. Check it out for yourselves if you wish, the capital letters are necessary;
http://dreampipe.net/Games/rry/test/IM/PAD_FULL.HTML

IRC CHAT
Kind of an oddity. Dream Passport 3 and Premier had IRC access built in, and Dreamkey 3 and 3.1 are essentially Dream Passport modified for the PAL territories - though there are some core differences. Firstly the vertical screen resolution is baked into the binary of Dreamkey, as such not accessible in Passport. Secondly the BBA functions are baked into the binary of Passport and not accessible in Dreamkey. As such you'll see no reference to one in the other.
But IRC functions were only available in Passport, yet here is a PVR (converted to PNG) texture file I ripped from Dreamkey 3.0 that shows the IRC Chat link function.

This is a slightly corrupted (and slightly altered) version of this PVR texture from Dream Passport 2 (Ripped from Dream Passport 3 under folder DP2) - it doesn't match the styles seen in Passport 3 or Passport Premier either. Interesting for it to appear here. Either way the x-avefront codes for /chat and /urlchat are completely disabled in Dreamkey, but thought this was interesting. I wonder if it's possible to revive the IRC elements in Dream Passport...

MUSIC PLAYER
There's the visual elements for a music player inside Dream Passport 3 and Premier's Texture sets. SKIN1 appears to be corrupted in Premier, but SKIN2 and SKIN3's both show up fine, altered into each different skin style - so whether it was used or not, this got far into development. The first image shown is from Passport 3, followed by Premier's SKIN2 and SKIN 3 variants.

MEGA DRIVE TITLES
The Dream Library boots Mega Drive games under a filetype I've not seen before for Mega Drive titles - .SGD
Is this a common game format? Doing a quick search it seems SEGA released several ROMS on Steam under SGD format - meaning they should be natively compatible with the Dream Library emulator. Has anyone got one I can test stuff with?

Just some interesting bits discovered as I try to learn more about the browsers.

[Cass]

Roareye this is really interesting - thanks for all your digital archaeology. If only the little white box had got a some more time - seems that Sega had some ambitious online ideas.

[Roareye]

Roareye this is really interesting - thanks for all your digital archaeology. If only the little white box had got a some more time - seems that Sega had some ambitious online ideas.

Absolutely. Sega seemed to be ahead of the curve but weren't in the game long enough to enact all the concepts out.

DLC for the first time on consoles.
Downloadable retro titles (Dream Library)
Music Player
Online out of the box
In-game Microphone chat
Keyboard+mouse combo
Portable gaming device (VMU) that would now likely be done as a mobile phone app
VOIP Calling (WhatsApp calling anyone?)
Twin stick control inputs (unused currently in the MAPLE controller bus)

Among many others. It would have been glorious to see them stay in the game.

I have a brief video update. -drez01- sent me a modified Dream Passport that he successfully got the Dream Library and page music running on! The audio in the video is unedited and plays through the DC when the relevant pages load. This is and early test, so there's a lot to be done on both the site and the browser disc. We only just worked out that images stored to the disc itself can't have a dash "-" symbol in their name or they fail to load for some reason, but they work fine online. We are inching closer to something usable.

https://youtu.be/_PqObo-G2HE

[Ian Micheal]

Yes i have run into the dash not working on files on the disk before sadface..

I guess you should add the dream EYE because it was able to do compressed video in chat as well and take pictures and use them.. Prolly talking they had thought online profiles online games people could used there real face..

[Cass]

It's probably just me and my own ignorance but I was completely unaware of the downloadable Dream Library megadrive titles. If the DC had launched with all those listed features implimented it would have been a completely different experience for console gamers at the time - you could argue most of those ideas weren't realised until the Xbox or even the xbox360.

Would it have made a difference? Impossible to say but it would certainly have significantly and positively differentiated the DC and the DC experience from the PS2. Maybe they would even have been able to get a revenue stream from an online store and been able to build an online brand community in parallel with the system.

[Roareye]

The Dream Library only existed on the Dream Passport 3 and Dream Passport Premier web browsers, which were Japanese only. If you look at the video I bring up the in-browser menus and they're in English here - that's due to the work by -drez01-, who is working on the browser disc itself to make it as user-friendly as possible.

[SMiTH]

roareye, I remember looking at dream passport for PC web browser to see if anything could be transferred over to DC.
AFAIK its locked behind dricas ISAO? account or was it chab?? idk... Maybe you could figure it out?

here is a link: https://ftp.vector.co.jp/23/53/2036/dppcv32.exe

[Roareye]

roareye, I remember looking at dream passport for PC web browser to see if anything could be transferred over to DC.
AFAIK its locked behind dricas ISAO? account or was it chab?? idk... Maybe you could figure it out?

here is a link: https://ftp.vector.co.jp/23/53/2036/dppcv32.exe

Thanks man, I'll give it a look into. I can't find a way to open this yet (and it won't install on my modern PC) but I'll give it some more tries and also share it to -drez01- who knows way more about what's happening on the browser end than I do. ^_^

::EDIT::
Yeah this wants Internet Explorer 4.0. I think this might need a Virtual Machine (or a genuine 2002) computer in order to run the installer properly.