What have you done with a PowerPC today?

[TheShortTimer]

Very cool! I used to really enjoy my Dreamcast when I had one.

It's such an incredible machine that deserved a better commercial fate. Much like its predecessor, the Saturn. Amazing stuff is being produced on the homebrew scene that's really showcasing its potential. Eternal kudos to @alex_free for enabling my access to this world. 🙂

Incidentally, is it possible to make a Dreamcast disc like this that instead of burning to a physical disc you save to a virtual disc for use in Retroarch? That would be pretty cool also!!

Wouldn't it just a case of loading the .CDI file into the emulator? Beyond that, I don't know enough about Retroarch to provide a better answer.

Thanks for sharing!

😁

Thanks for your kind words. There's more to come… 😉

 

[DouglasCarroll]

It's such an incredible machine that deserved a better commercial fate. Much like its predecessor, the Saturn. Amazing stuff is being produced on the homebrew scene that's really showcasing its potential. Eternal kudos to @alex_free for enabling my access to this world. 🙂



Wouldn't it just a case of loading the .CDI file into the emulator? Beyond that, I don't know enough about Retroarch to provide a better answer.



Thanks for your kind words. There's more to come… 😉

I'm not certain if it's a .cdi file, I will check on that, good suggestion.

I used to LOVE playing "Starlancer" online with my Dreamcast, it was such a great time. There "used to be" a board on "Online Consoles" in the Dreamcast section where people would post when they would meet up for this and most times at least 4 people would show up for dogfights. I'm not sure if anything like this exists anymore. Did you ever do this? Anyways, this was my #1 best reason to own the Dreamcast and I really enjoyed it a lot...very special times I thought.

Life moves on and for various reasons I no longer have a Dreamcast, however I sometimes do enjoy playing Dreamcast games in RetroArch and, for the most part, they run pretty well.

Maybe I can get RetroArch online to play some "Starlancer" again some day..... (we can dream...right!)

🙂

 

[TheShortTimer]

I used to LOVE playing "Starlancer" online with my Dreamcast, it was such a great time. There "used to be" a board on "Online Consoles" in the Dreamcast section where people would post when they would meet up for this and most times at least 4 people would show up for dogfights. I'm not sure if anything like this exists anymore. Did you ever do this?

I'm a newcomer to the Dreamcast. Back in 2021, I came across one during a jogging session that had been dumped in my neighbourhood. To paraphrase one of my favourite films, I took it home and its been a beloved addition to my cache of gaming gear ever since. 😀

Not too long ago, I bought the keyboard and perhaps, I'll track down a mouse too. Sega really excelled with what sadly became their hardware swansong.

 

[barracuda156]

I'm a newcomer to the Dreamcast. Back in 2021, I came across one during a jogging session that had been dumped in my neighbourhood. To paraphrase one of my favourite films, I took it home and its been a beloved addition to my cache of gaming gear ever since. 😀

Not too long ago, I bought the keyboard and perhaps, I'll track down a mouse too. Sega really excelled with what sadly became their hardware swansong.

Now you can install NetBSD onto it!

 

[alex_free]

I'm a newcomer to the Dreamcast. Back in 2021, I came across one during a jogging session that had been dumped in my neighbourhood. To paraphrase one of my favourite films, I took it home and its been a beloved addition to my cache of gaming gear ever since. 😀

Not too long ago, I bought the keyboard and perhaps, I'll track down a mouse too. Sega really excelled with what sadly became their hardware swansong.

Mate you gotta get the broadband adapter and plug in an Ethernet cord then visit the Mac garden with the browser cd you can burn. I don’t even know how expensive that super rare accessory would even be nowadays but would be insane. (There’s also rpi based projects that emulate a 56k modem which works out to be much cheaper).

 

[DouglasCarroll]

I

I'm a newcomer to the Dreamcast. Back in 2021, I came across one during a jogging session that had been dumped in my neighbourhood. To paraphrase one of my favourite films, I took it home and its been a beloved addition to my cache of gaming gear ever since. 😀

Not too long ago, I bought the keyboard and perhaps, I'll track down a mouse too. Sega really excelled with what sadly became their hardware swansong.

I can recommend the fishing controller also, it’s pretty great to use.

 

[alex_free]

@TheShortTimer btw absolutely no one says mate in America but I ironically use it online because I’m trying to make it a thing here and or confuse people to think I’m from the UK it’s soo funny to me when the British YouTubers use it coming from some rando American anyways.

 

[TheShortTimer]

@TheShortTimer btw absolutely no one says mate in America but I ironically use it online because I’m trying to make it a thing here it’s soo funny too me when the British YouTubers use it coming from some rando American anyways.

Hehe... Beyond one of my best friends who I refer to as "matey" during instant messenger conversations but yet never face-to-face, I seldom use it myself. 🙂

I think your equivalents are "pal" or "buddy"?

 

[alex_free]

Hehe... Beyond one of my best friends who I refer to as "matey" during instant messenger conversations but yet never face-to-face, I seldom use it myself. 🙂

I think your equivalents are "pal" or "buddy"?

I’m from Maryland originally born and raised (very old colony, also no one pronounces it right it’s. MARE-LAND). There your “my mans xyz” or friend if your a hick, depends how far your out the city I guess. But I’ve been from Maine (most northern state, true New England) to Florida (saw NYC too ofc) then also been through Ohio, Indiana, Idaho, Kansas, Colorado. Finally getting more west soon to Utah, Nevada (going to Vegas) and then cali I have to see the Pacific Ocean. Where I’m at right now is literally 2,000 miles from where I was born and grew up at (apparently 3218 km)… and I drove that, multiple times. Pacific Ocean is like a 15 hour drive, Atlantic is like 28 hours…

 

[wm2]

what a lucky man...

https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageApple/comments/1lkdy64/picked_up_a_powerbook_g3_pismo_on_fb_marketplace

 

[Matias_]

Today I upgraded my 1 GHz uniprocessor FW800 PowerMac G4 to a dual 1.25 GHz using a CPU card I managed to score for just €10 shipped.

View attachment 2600832
Stock heatsink clears the triple coils and fits perfectly.

View attachment 2600833
Currently running at 1 GHz still because I've not yet adjusted the bus clock from 133 MHz to 167 MHz, the whole motherboard has to come out for that.

View attachment 2600834

Today I pulled everything apart again and removed resistor R676 on the backside of the motherboard. Reassembled everything, repasted the CPUs and now the new processor module runs at full speed with a 167 MHz bus!

 

[alex_free]

@TheShortTimer it turns out they are about the same price as in 2020! A good price no, but

Basically you can just plug in an Ethernet cord to this and your set with a burned web browser cd like it’s y2k. By default your Dreamcast has a 56k modem, which is why you’d want this or an RPI setup. I will one day see this! I was so close at one point but things happen I’ll get there again

 

[barracuda156]

@TheShortTimer it turns out they are about the same price as in 2020! A good price no, butView attachment 2605045

Basically you can just plug in an Ethernet cord to this and your set with a burned web browser cd like it’s y2k. By default your Dreamcast has a 56k modem, which is why you’d want this or an RPI setup. I will one day see this! I was so close at one point but things happen I’ll get there again

Makes sense to compare with Buyee, usually they are cheaper for the same items.

 

[alex_free]

Makes sense to compare with Buyee, usually they are cheaper for the same items.

It’s things like this (Using older browsers for my point blank simple html style website) that make me want to host a real VPS http supported no SSL website. But it’s just so tempting to abuse use GitHub for free and have micro$oft pay for it. I can literally upload massive files, link them to GitHub pages (Like this is linked to my GitHub pages website, users literally don’t know the difference. I literally just made a repo containing a Readme so I can create a release on said repo with massive files and get better SEO, not that this will ever get really popular considering what it is but more so with my other projects). I’ve been doing this for years, something like what I’ve linked there’s no real source code to even publish so yea it’s a bit egregious most of my stuff is not so bad but it’s payback for windows 8+.

 

[TheShortTimer]

@TheShortTimer it turns out they are about the same price as in 2020! A good price no, butView attachment 2605045

Basically you can just plug in an Ethernet cord to this and your set with a burned web browser cd like it’s y2k. By default your Dreamcast has a 56k modem, which is why you’d want this or an RPI setup. I will one day see this! I was so close at one point but things happen I’ll get there again

The prices on eBay UK are roughly similar to this and there's a number of brand new units available from Japan - but predictably, they're absurdly expensive. I was hoping that someone on AliExpress might have produced a cheapo clone but so far, no luck.

 

[srp]

Today I was able to build `shairpoint-sync` (AirPlay speaker) for PPC Leopard, and then setup an addon in AquaPlex to handle starting it and receiving/controlling audio from AirPlay sources (like Spotify).

shairpoint is great because so many different types of streaming services work with AirPlay, so now PPC can act as a hub for platforms like Spotify, YouTube Music, Pandora, or any other AirPlay capable service (audio only). You won't be able to view all of your songs and pick something out directly on device, but you could easily queue up a playlist, and then on device you have access to play/pause, forward, backward, etc. Since it's just audio, it should be compatible on a wide range of hardware too.

I tested with my Quad: can confirm that `shairport-sync` works - I see it listed in my AirPlay devices on my iPhone, I can connect to it, and when I hit "Play" on my iPhone, music starts coming through the speakers.

I also have been working on optimizing the AquaPlex player further - implementing stricter frame pacing policies and AltiVec kernels for decode and upload loops.

Since I want this player to rival CorePlayer in terms of performance, it only makes sense to open it up to other mediums besides just Plex. So I also created addons for SoundCloud, Twitch Streams, a generic media player, and a DVD player - My video player is becoming more and more capable, I can play back 720p at about half speed on my 1ghz iBook G4 and this should only get better!

SoundCloud streaming:

1080p Twitch stream:

So, a productive day! I'll release this update pretty soon.

 

[barracuda156]

waifu2x-converter-cpp with OpenCV 4, fixed and confirmed working:

From 1500x900 to 3100x1800, looks neat. It even claims to use Altivec.

 

[barracuda156]

waifu2x-converter-cpp with OpenCV 4, fixed and confirmed working:

View attachment 2605362

From 1500x900 to 3100x1800, looks neat. It even claims to use Altivec.

By the way, a comparison, from left to right: original image (just enlarged, no upscaling), upscale 200% with flatcv, upscale 200% with waifu2x.

Downside is that the latter needs a lot of dependencies, while flatcv is a tiny pure-C library.

 

[DouglasCarroll]

The prices on eBay UK are roughly similar to this and there's a number of brand new units available from Japan - but predictably, they're absurdly expensive. I was hoping that someone on AliExpress might have produced a cheapo clone but so far, no luck.

That’s why nobody really uses the absurd ethernet adaptor for the Dreamcast these days but does this instead…

DreamPi Tutorial : Dreamcast Live

DreamPi is a piece of software created by Luke Benstead a.ka. Kazade that allows you to get your Dreamcast online. The software runs on a Raspberry Pi, which is essentially a tiny computer and turns a standard broadband internet connection into a dial-up connection that can be used by the...

dreamcastlive.net

Faster, more compatible & cheaper…what’s not to like?

😁👍

 

[840quadra]

Found a drive that I had a ton of AVI files of TNG star trek, X-Files, and older Top Gear that I ripped from my own DVD collection ages ago.

I am using the G4 and G5 to compress them down in iSquint to make them compatible with my OG Apple TV, as well as my 5th generation iPod video. Since the G5 is online to act as my classic server, I may as well put some of that power consumption to good use 😉 .

iSquint is mostly a pretty wrapper for FFMPG but it is quite stable in 10.5.8 and produces good quality files that both systems enjoy well enough.

 

[alex_free]

That’s why nobody really uses the absurd ethernet adaptor for the Dreamcast these days but does this instead…

DreamPi Tutorial : Dreamcast Live

DreamPi is a piece of software created by Luke Benstead a.ka. Kazade that allows you to get your Dreamcast online. The software runs on a Raspberry Pi, which is essentially a tiny computer and turns a standard broadband internet connection into a dial-up connection that can be used by the...

dreamcastlive.net

Faster, more compatible & cheaper…what’s not to like?

😁👍

Cheaper, more compatible (with games that have community run servers, most games didn’t add support for Ethernet but had it for 56k back then) yes, faster? Not at all. You’re still emulating a 56k modem. And if you don’t have an RPI or any of the other stuff it *might* be worth it to just go ahead and purchase your retirement in 20 years when it gets even more rare the Ethernet adapter, especially if the end goal is browsing the internet with said console on http websites that still exist and can render on basically y2k browser tech.

DreamPI is Definitely a good option, this is the rpi thing I was talking about before.

 

[alex_free]

The prices on eBay UK are roughly similar to this and there's a number of brand new units available from Japan - but predictably, they're absurdly expensive. I was hoping that someone on AliExpress might have produced a cheapo clone but so far, no luck.

New you say? The reason this is so expensive is because it came out right before the head guy of sega who basically carried the Dreamcast with his own money while the company was going under passed away and they ended manufacturing… of course the mil cd exploit didn’t help the console either which is why you can burn games for yours today and by 2000 it was getting quite realistic. Barely any were made and even less were sold because no one had Ethernet/broadband back then and were content with the built in 56k modem. Which is also why many games only support 56k.

I’d be very wary, like did they find abandoned warehouse full of Dreamcast Ethernet adapters?

The hardware for the adapter is unfortunately not cloned yet AFAIK, most people settle for the 56k modem emulators but this is the ultimate upgrade for the console and I will one day get this and post it here

One last thing, Ethernet to WiFi adapters exist, so you could have a WiFi connected Dreamcast.

Also kinda unrelated but one way to rip your games is via Ethernet to your PC, that’s how it was mostly done 2 decades ago due to GD-ROMs being wacky.

 

[alex_free]

one site you might enjoy @TheShortTimer is this http://mc.pp.se/dc/. One of the OG Dreamcast hacking websites which inspired Dreamcast cdi burner, http://mc.pp.se/dc/cdr.html for example. 100% bet my life that this would render perfectly with a web browser cd on the Dreamcast to get real meta.

SSL is a scam for text only info heavy websites. SSL makes sense for account required type things but is been overhyped for over a decade and does nothing to make you more secure when browsing just information

 

[Dronecatcher]

In one of my periodical "Youtube still works...." videos, I was amazed to find obsolete Youtube app, YouView, still functions as a search tool for passing URLs onto scripts with less CPU overhead than a FoxBox (or similar.)

 

[MacFoxG4]

Well, it's still winter time where I live, so it's a great time to use my Sawtooth. Aside from trying out PowerFox, I had to apply the internet radio patch to iTunes 10. iTunes 10 didn't need the patch last time I used it, but in 2026 it does. I couldn't get the patch to work at first, I even reinstalled Leopard and tried patching the bundled version of iTunes 8, which resulted in an iTunes that wouldn't start. I tried pre-patched copies of iTunes 8-10 from the Garden, and Leopard complained that they were corrupted. The pre-patched version of iTunes 8 worked without problems in my Tiger partition though. I ended up updating to iTunes 10.6.3 again and once again tried to patch it myself and this time it worked. I later on played some Minecraft 1.2.5 PPC Edition while listening to iTunes' internet radio and still got decent frame rates in the game.