Devkit Boot-Intro for Retail-Dreamcast?

[chocomarker1]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oaOIqwLRvMU

so is it possible? i saw that there is a bios flasher disc, ready to burn and to use for the dreamcast, to switch between regions. wouldnt it also be possible to flash the dreamcast with this bios? or did i get something wrong here?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7v8c...eature=related

[Evangelion]

The "flash disk" just modify a bitsetting to set the region and not related with the original bios but related with the flash memory (Ip, ISP settings and region settings).

Don't forget that : the katana bios doesn't support MilCD hacked discs

[Quzar]

Originally Posted by Evangelion

The "flash disk" just modify a bitsetting to set the region and not related with the original bios but related with the flash memory (Ip, ISP settings and region settings).

Don't forget that : the katana bios doesn't support MilCD hacked discs

AFAIK it doesn't support any Mil-CDs, retail or 'hacked'. (Havn't had the opportunity to start mine up since I got an official MilCD)

if you wanted to identify, in the katana and retail bioses, where the bootup logo was stored and the routines to display them, odds are you could drop one in for the other.

[chocomarker1]

well the devkit intro is also already leaked, since you can use it too for the nulldc dreamcast emulator i believe. so some folks should definately know, "where" specifically the intro in the devkit is located, same goes for the one of the dreamcast intro.. am i right or not?

i remember something interesting i read in the official dreamcast magazine.

it was planned that sega would somehow update (via game-discs or internet) the dreamcast boot-intro to make it more 3D, to already show a little bit of the 3d-capability of the dreamcast (as does the ps2 when it boots up).

sadly, this never happened. and we only got a 3d menu screen which can be flipped thanks to puyo pop fever, so maybe if sega released another dreamcast game they would finally accomplish the 3d-boot screen as it is on the devkit (i know, weird phantasy..)

[neoblast]

well, actually there are hacked katana bioses around that make the dev kit able to read mil-cd's and backups.
Also the intro screen is located on the dev kit bios it would be a matter of replacing that part, some reverse engineering would do the job.
But I don't want to change my bios, it is way too much intrusive and probably you get a bricked DC.
There is no way to update that thourgh a CDROM because it is a read only memory.

[-=FamilyGuy=-]

Hey Neo, just to correct something out, the animation is IN the bios, but the bios is slightly differently formatted. That's why the intro Shows in Chancast or NullDC with only the bios as a modified file.

Also that ahcked bios (or even the original one) would require a completely rewritten flash memory (almost full of 0xFF) as the devkit one is just like this.

FG

[Quzar]

Originally Posted by neoblast

well, actually there are hacked katana bioses around that make the dev kit able to read mil-cd's and backups.

I've never seen one. Where have you read about this or seen it?

[neoblast]

My friend puch made those hacks

[Evangelion]

Can you provide this bios file ?

[neoblast]

it was posted on segakatana , IIRC, but it is down......
I will try to find it...I guess I lost it when I formatted my HDD

[link83]

I think this would be an interesting idea and surely possible for someone with knowlege of editing bios's - its not really very practial however as it would require soldering a new bios chip to use on an actual Dreamcast.

I compared the retail and HKT-0120 bios and theres over 8000 differences. I would imagine the bootup animation would be one of the larger strings, but my hex editing program cant arrange the differences by size order, and I didnt feel like looking though all 8000+

Im am intrigued by this hacked HKT-0120 bios that was mentioned that can boot CDR's - does anybody still have a copy?

Out of curiosity why has the HKT-0120 bios not been dumped in all three dip switch positions - NTSC-U, NTSC-J and PAL-E? Originally I read that it wasnt possible as the HKT-0120 always returned an NTSC-J bios image, but that cant be true as I have since come across a HKT-0120 PAL-E bios image aswell as the NTSC-J one Mark30001 released years ago.

I still would also love to know what the dip switch's on a HKT-0120 actually do/connect to - how do they alter the bios chip? Is their a custom chip in between, or is it simple and easy to replicate? (eg joinging two bios chip legs together)

Thanks in advance

[Evangelion]

Dip Sw :

Switch 1 Switch 2 Meaning
OFF OFF Stereo AV cable, S-video, or RF output
ON OFF RGB (NTSC or PAL)
OFF ON Undefined
ON ON VGA cable

The rotary Switch set the region of the devbox

Code Country or Region
0 Japan (NTSC)
1 Not used
2 Not used
3 Not used
4 North America (NTSC)
5 Not used
6 Brazil (PAL-M)
7 Argentina (PAL-N)
8 Not used
9 Europe (PAL)
A Not used
B Not used
C Not used
D Not used
E Not used
F Not used


From GetStart.pdf

[link83]

Thanks for that, so theres actually five possible regions for the dev kits bios. I forgot that it uses a rotary switch for the region setting - I was thinking of the video mode dip switches.

So what does this rotary switch actually connect to/how does it work? And is there any reason why no-one has dumped all five bios regions?

Thanks again

[-=FamilyGuy=-]

Originally Posted by link83

Thanks for that, so theres actually five possible regions for the dev kits bios. I forgot that it uses a rotary switch for the region setting - I was thinking of the video mode dip switches.

So what does this rotary switch actually connect to/how does it work? And is there any reason why no-one has dumped all five bios regions?

Thanks again

It always dump a JAP bios. MArk tried every switch position and it always dump the same exact JAP bios and flash. The switch much simply open a flag somewhere to say it's region 1 2 3 4 or 5, but the bios isn't modified.

FG

[link83]

But thats really strange though - a while ago I downloaded a European HKT-0120 bios - how would that of been possible?

I have compared it with an NTSC-J bios with a hex editor and there is 110 areas of difference, so I doubt its simply a hacked NTSC-J bios file.

Any ideas?

<EDIT> In fact I got the European HKT-0120 Bios from you FamilyGuy! From your post in this thread:-
http://dcemulation.org/phpBB/viewtop...89863&start=40
Do you know where its from originally?

[Evangelion]

So this hacked bios cannot works on a Dev Kit ?

[-=FamilyGuy=-]

Originally Posted by link83

But thats really strange though - a while ago I downloaded a European HKT-0120 bios - how would that of been possible?

I have compared it with an NTSC-J bios with a hex editor and there is 110 areas of difference, so I doubt its simply a hacked NTSC-J bios file.

Any ideas?

<EDIT> In fact I got the European HKT-0120 Bios from you FamilyGuy! From your post in this thread:-
http://dcemulation.org/phpBB/viewtop...89863&start=40
Do you know where its from originally?

THe original hacker is Puch666, he tried to "hack" the JAP bios to transform it into a PAL one, but all he could de is to allow the blue swirl to show. It still didn't booted PAL games nor any other region though.

Here's a great explanation:

Originally Posted by mathieulh

Bad news here, setting the region value to 00 does indeed change the swirl colour to blue and the region itself HOWEVER the region is NOT PAL, it is an unknown/unset region, thus no cd-r (JUE) will run with the region setting as 00. (it is probably a corrupted value) EVERY other settings appear to be japan. How so ? because the value at 0x126 is very likely not to be the only value to modify, to sum up, this value probably only correspond to ONE of the dip switches of the devkits. As you know there are several of those and some probably need to be set or unset at the same time as some others in order to change a region properly. Thus we need to find the other dip switch values to change. Yet the bios would still not be region free, so the best way is to hack it to bypass the region check in IP.bin

I hope it helped !

FG

[link83]

Thanks for the info familyguy - I understand now, the European HKT-0120 bios is actually just a hacked version! I thought it was a real HKT-0120 bios you see

Ok, well I thought I would have a go at hacking the HKT-0120 bios myself combining it with parts of a retail Dreamcasts bios. My goal would be to have a bios that has the cool boot intro, allows CDR's to boot, allows GDR's to boot, and looks for the region setting in the flash (instead of inside the bios itself) and is region free.

To that aim I am wondering if anybody has an image of a GD-R I can use to test with? I can fine GDI images (GD-ROMS) and CDI images easily enough, but not a GD-R image any ideas?

I have already managed to make the retail Dreamcast bios have the HKT-0120's intro music...

[ConsoleFun]

Originally Posted by link83

Ok, well I thought I would have a go at hacking the HKT-0120 bios myself combining it with parts of a retail Dreamcasts bios. My goal would be to have a bios that has the cool boot intro, allows CDR's to boot, allows GDR's to boot, and looks for the region setting in the flash (instead of inside the bios itself) and is region free.

To that aim I am wondering if anybody has an image of a GD-R I can use to test with? I can fine GDI images (GD-ROMS) and CDI images easily enough, but not a GD-R image any ideas?

Very cool! I can send you a free GD-R game if that help...

CF

[link83]

Originally Posted by ConsoleFun

Very cool! I can send you a free GD-R game if that help...

CF

That would be fantastic I'll send you a PM