Originally released in North America September 9, 1999, the Sega Dreamcast had an unusually short life. Sega officially stopped production in March of 2001. In this short life the gaming scene was forever changed. I received my first Dreamcast October 11th 2010, nearly ten years out of production.

The Hardware:

Not crazy powerful by today standards, but back in the release, this was a powerhouse of polygon, triangle pushing, mind blowing 3D graphics. Driving this crazy train is a screaming 200MHz processor paired with a 128bit vector graphics engine from PowerVR. 7.0 Million Polygons per second with some pretty advanced features like anti-aliasing, bump mapping, z-buffering and per-pixel translucency. All this in 24bit color and at the high resolution of 640×480. (Keep in mind, until this the standard was 320×240) This was the high definition of console gaming. Sound was driven by a Yamaha Sound Processor with an independent 32bit ARM7 RISC CPU running at 45MHz. Capable of 64 separate channels all with 128 step DSP. Translates to fantastic audio. All together the Sega Dreamcast has 28Mb of ram. 16MB of 64bit main system memory running at 100MHz, 8MB of 4x16bit video memory also at 100MHz, and 2MB dedicated to just audio.

In comparison the Playstation 2 had 294MHz processor with a custom 128bit graphics processor. Although having a clock speed of nearly 50% faster, the Playstation 2 pumped out only 60 Million Polygons per second. What stole the crown was it being the cheapest DVD player. Sega never had a chance.

Pioneering Features:

Although the Dreamcast is thought of as the failure of the industry (excluding the horrid Atari Jaguar) one thing it did was innovate. This was the first console to sport online connectivity. It included a 56k modem! Not only that, but if you were one of the few at the time, a broadband adapter was available separately. Many games exploited this feature, Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, and the most famous of them Phantasy Star Online. Not only did the connectivity allow multiplayer gameplay, web browsing was possible. Sega even had a keyboard and mouse attachment to make the process less painful. No, flash was not supported here either. Sega didn’t stop there, their memory card was unique to the market. The VMU (Visual Memory Unit) itself was a portable game console. Many of the games on the Dreamcast would include mini games to bring along with you. Sonic Adventure included a tamagotchi like game, Power Stone had 5 puzzle games, and even third party games were created. They ranged from Tetris clones to Space Invaders, and racing games. One hacker even went so far as to create a VMU 3d game engine which powered first person shooters, all on a memory card! Lastly, unknown to most, the Dreamcast supported VGA output. This gave the console 480p graphics. Impressive at the time.

The Games:

Is it possible to mention Sega and not think of Sonic the Hedgehog? Didn’t think so. So naturally the first game released for the new console was a true 3D rendition of Sonic. In the same manner Nintendo made Mario 64 from Super Mario Bros, Sega created Sonic Adventure from Sonic the Hedgehog. Right from the start this game moves FAST! You open up to killing your first boss and move right on into collection chaos emeralds. You would have thought we would have gathered all those dang things up by now. Controls can be a little challenging at times. The analog stick is very sensitive, and the d-pad placement could have been rethought. Even with those shortfalls the game is pure Sega joy to play.

Next up is Soul Calibur. A visually stunning fighter from Namco. Changed the fighting game genre as we know it. Sega did not need the Tekken series, they had Soul Calibur, and it carried a sword, or an axe, or a knife, or a pole, you get it. Weapons were everywhere. Quite frankly, if you own a Dreamcast, and do not have this game, you owe it to that little white box to go out and purchase it. Now! Get up and go get it.

Haven’t had time to play the games long enough to accurately judge any more. I will be posting an update later on this topic, you better believe it.

Getting Dreamcast Stuff:

Of course with a console being out of production for nearly a decade now, there is a few caveats you need to learn before you begin. You cannot go out to a store and buy accessories, games, and don’t even think about playing multiplayer online, the servers are long gone. Don’t let this stop you, there is still a huge market on the internet for everything Dreamcast. In fact, the last game produced and sold commercially on the Dreamcast was this year! Fast Striker available directly from NG:Dev.Direct. Another “feature” of the Dreamcast is the ability to play backups un moded. You read correctly, you can play burned games on any Dreamcast. Some places will point out that it is only on version 1 consoles, but I own a version 2, and it works the same. http://www.emuparadise.org/ is a good site for game backups. Of course I recommend you purchase used before you go this route.

The Dreamcast does not have a CD-ROM, but a GD-ROM. The native disc format holds 1GB and has much better read times. In most cases games did not utilize the capacity, but instead had a closed blank session towards the center of the disc to push the data to the outside, where it read faster.

Games can be had from 1-15 dollars depending on sources, so its cheap to build a library.

Closing Thoughts:

I really like this system, but it is not without faults.

Pros:

• Crazy innovative features (the VMU is just too cool)
• Fast game play at high resolutions
• Easy to use, slap a game in and go
• Fun original games (isn’t that what its all about)
• hackable to the Nth degree without modding

Cons:

• No longer in production (bummer)
• The controller could use a redesign (never gonna happen)
• DVD media support missing

If you are a classic gamer and do not own a Sega Dreamcast, go right now and buy/order/steal one. You won’t regret it.

I currently have a netbook, Dell Mini 1010, that lives in the living room. Its a nice little machine, 1.6ghz 1gig ram 1366×768 resolution, but all it does is browse the web, and poorly. Its just bloody slow. I had originally purchased it to replace another netbook, HP Mini 2133, because of its “speed.” It is faster than that poor via C7, but its still horrible, not to mention this one has the Poulsbo chipset.

I started thinking, what do I want in a device here at the house?

• Great Web Browsing
• eBooks, including my collection of PDF’s
• Watching Videos
• Playing Games, nothing major
• Write and edit some documents
• Great Battery Life

Going through this list, the iPad is actually the device I need. Say What? Why not just get a laptop? Answer, too much, don’t need all that, besides, they are horrible for reading books. But what about the cons?

• No Camera
• No Multitasking
• No Open Development
• Can’t play my divx/xvid video collection

Well, the camera on my netbook I have used once, just to see if it worked. Never again. As for Multitasking, I have the capability to do it on my Mini, just no processor to, so I end up in single task anyway. Multitasking may come in iPhoneOS 4.0 too. As for development, I don’t write native apps, everything I do is in web languages. Im open to do whatever I want there, especially with HTML5 and webgl support in there. As for my existing video collection, took me about 10 minutes to create an html5 application that would transcode those files into mpeg4 and have them playing. Got to love the open source community there.

Android?

I have a Motorola Droid, rooted, running 2.1. While it is a nice device, the android operating system just does not scale up to this form. There are Android based tablets coming to the market, but just lack the polish for something I just want to work. Sorry Android Dev Team, your doing GREAT!, just keep going.

As much as it pains me to say, this is actually the device I need for what I want. Dang you Apple!

What is the Apple iPad?

In short, its a BIG iPod Touch. Nothing more, nothing less. It has a custom system on chip designed by Apple and their newly purchased PA Semiconductor. Runs at 1GHZ and has great power management. Runs the iPhone OS 3.2 with some new features like iBooks (Sad they recycled a name) and iWork.

What Apple Says the iPad is.

The best way to expirence the web, email, photos, and email. Hands down.

Technicial Specs:

• 1Ghz Apple A4 Processor
• 9.7 inch LED backlit LCD Display (1024×768)
• WiFi (A/B/G/N)
• Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR
• Optional 3G HSDPA Modem (miniSIM)
• 16/32/64GB Flash Storage
• Accelerometers
• Assisted GPS

Whats Wrong With That?

The first thing I see wrong is also the first thing the music/movie/publishing industry will see right. DRM. This is the perfect device for further developing and extending DRM. Apple already has the closed architecture of the iPhone OS and App Store for locking down what you can do with the device. Ok, I know that’s harsh, but I like to do with as I wish with MY hardware.

The next thing is just something they had to have missed in development, the screen. Its 4×3, 1024×768. All new video content is 16×9. There is no way this will be in the second revision. While on video, the iPad will hock up to your television, but its through the dock connector and an adapter. Once you purchase the adapter you will still be restricted to 576p and 480p outputs. Hardly close to the 1080p resolution your big screen is pushing. That will lead to pixelicious video. Just give us Display port or HDMI.

Next is audio formats. In Apple tradition it supports AAC, AAC-DRM, MP3, Audible, and WAV. Not a lot of options. Moving along.

On to inputs. We have the dock connector, and … nothing. I could have forgiven this had there been at least a built in a camera. Thats right, no camera, and no SDHC for expansion. This device needed to include 2 cameras, one on the back, and one in front for video conferencing. Maybe in Revision 2.

This one goes in bold,  NO MULTITASKING!!!!! With a device of this power and size, this is inexcusable. PERIOD.

Concluding

I could go on about what should have been done, but there isn’t a point. Maybe when I get to hold one and play with it I’ll change my mind. As of now, I just see a big iPod Touch that has filled a gap in a market that no one knew existed. Nice try Apple, better luck next time. WOW what a bad name.

This guy was close with his parody.

Nice Work Verizon.

For months now, I have been dealing with slow transfers over ssh and smb from my home server. When I say slow, I am talking speeds ranging from 16 kilobit to 1 Megabit. Slow for a Gigabit network, slow for any network.

My server runs CentOS 5.3 64bit; Dual Opteron 1.8GHZ 4GB Memory and 8 250GB SATA2 drives in RAID5 with 3 Gigabit Ethernet connections, not a slow machine.

It all started when right after the upgrade from 5.2 to 5.3. Everything had been running smooth and great under 5.2, so naturally I start researching issues with the new kernel version, samba versions, and even new drivers for the NICs. I find a lot of people having issues with the Broadcom NICs on my server board, Asus M2N-LR. Well crap, I’m sick of dealing with the speed issues, so I order a new NIC. Intel ProServer Gigabit NIC. Great support under ANY operating system. Still nothing. Still the same slow speeds.  CRAP ! Thats all I can think. May the upgrade went bad.

So I wipe my server. You have any idea how hard it is to find a way to back up terabytes of data, trust me, its hard. Reinstall CentOS 5.3. Get all my data back on there, all my web sites back up, STILL NOTHING ! ! !  Slow as EVER ! ! ! !

I’m pissed at this point, I have spent hours redoing my server. So I make the CRAZY leap that maybe the mainboard is bad. I Order a new one. $229.99 and 3 days later, I put the board in. SAME FREAKING PROBLEMS!!!

I know its not my desktop systems, they work with other servers, but all on different networks. AH HA ! ! !

See that picture at the top. Yep, that little piece of crap Linksys SD2005 Gigabit workgroup switch was the culprit. Teach me to buy a more expensive switch to use at home, replaced it with a green series D-Link, and everything has been working great since.

You may wonder, what up with the title? I have a Spare Asus M2N-LR in box that I can’t return, so I’m giving it away. Send me a tweet to @feekes with Free Motherboard in it, and you could get it. I’ll even throw in a Linksys SD2005 paperweight.

I’ll pick the person at random in a week, and ship you the board for free.

Thanks.

***Update***

Since I had so few, I mean NO RESPONSES on Twitter, I’ll just give it away at the next tweetup.

Well, today I shut down my server to install a new NIC, and upon powering up, the power supply any motherboard died. Just for those wondering it was a Dual Core Opteron 1.8ghz in a Asus M2N-LR socket AM2 motherboard with a 360 Watt Silverthorn power supply. So needless to say, until I order a new board my XMPP, local DNS, Print Server, File Server, Media Center, and my PHP Development will remain at a halt. Don’t we just love servers.

This is Just too Awesome!

USB Chainsaw

WOW ! Thats a long Wait!

If you know of a netbook that meats this requirement, please email me. I need a new one. My Hp 2133 just stinks with Fedora 11 on it. Thanks VIA for the “open” drivers.

ShevaPlug Developement Kit

And yep, it runs Linux. Ships with a version of Ubuntu 9.04, but you bet I am putting Fedora ARM on there. Thanks guys for the awesome ARM release. I will keep you posted on the toys I build with this.

More info:  GlobalScale Technologies