Connecting an external serial modem to the Dreamcast?

[p1pkin]

I think that's everything worth trying that I own. I don't have Alien Front Online,

worth to check this one, arcade Alien Front Online (the only NAOMI game) supports serial modem, so there is high chances Dreamcast port too

[colgate]

TapamN, have you tried PAL games instead? maybe dreamkey saves this configuration in a different place in the flash, where only the PAL games know where to look for, not the NTSC games.

[megavolt85]

As far as I remember, there was a person at assembler-games who launched PPP connection in Alien Front via SCIF port

[Wombat]

Also over at Arcade-Projects a user was looking into getting the Naomi version of AFO online; https://www.arcade-projects.com/threads ... ine.15574/

[dreamcast ™]

I was one of the ones originally working on bringing AFO back online and can confirm that it can connect via the serial port.

[TapamN]

I didn't mention this before, but in the flash tool, there's a secret menu with a developer message in it. I managed to find it by accident. If you're viewing ISP Info 2, there is an invisible menu option enabled below the last one that takes you to a "Merry Christmas" page that lists when some features were added to the program, with last update mentioned being in October 22nd, 1999. The first screenshot shown here is the option you need to select to enable it, and the second screenshot is what gets shown. The timestamp on the 1ST_READ of the tool is October 11th, 2000, so seems it was updated later without the changes being listed. The serial modem option might be a later addition.

I went back and tried Hundred Swords (I think I tried with modem attached?) and Aero Dancing i, On Hundred Swords (WinCE game), I got nothing.

Aero Dancing i supports the BBA, and normally reboots into a separate binary when you try to use the internet option with the BBA. It did not reboot when the BBA was attached, and I got some garbage on the serial port. My Japanese is VERY poor, but it's good enough to read the word シリアル (serial) in the message displayed while dialing! (The kanji 端子 after it is "port".)

I tried different baud rates. The flash is set to 115200, and I was trying that first. Then I lowered it to 57600 (which I tried before a few times), but still got random stuff. I lowered it again to 38400, and I was able to get an "AT" over the serial line, which is something that you would expect to see when trying to initialize a modem. The modem emulator responded that it was initialized, but Aero Dancing still failed shortly afterwards.

I went back and tried Propeller Arena, since that also had serial activity. It seems like it was expecting a 38400 baud rate as well, because it started working. However, it sent a Hayes command that the script didn't understand ("AT$N1=1&C0&D1") and failed. It seems like it's just some configuration commands followed by a dial command squashed up in one line. I modified the script to treat it as a dial command, and it lasted longer (about 5-10 seconds past the virtual login) before returning an error. Maybe it would have worked if there were servers up? I tried using tcpdump to see if anything was happening, but it was hard to tell with all the junk my web browser's tabs were doing...

I went back and tried the Sonic Adventure browser with 38400 baud and the stuff on the serial port was the message, "***SCIF interface start.***". It still wouldn't dial. I tried the Chu Chu Rocket browser at 38400, and I got two space characters.

TapamN, have you tried PAL games instead? maybe dreamkey saves this configuration in a different place in the flash, where only the PAL games know where to look for, not the NTSC games.

I think that's unlikely, but I can try. I haven't seen any evidence that US/JP/PAL games use different locations in the flash. I dumped my flash after turning on the external modem in DreamKey, and the Japanese flash tool was correctly reading that I enabled the serial modem. I'll try burning Toy Racer later, just to be sure.

As far as I remember, there was a person at assembler-games who launched PPP connection in Alien Front via SCIF port

Was this the arcade or console version?

I tried out a burnt version of Alien Front, and wasn't seeing anything on the serial port. This was done three times: with BBA, with modem, and with nothing in the expansion port. The option for online was enabled the whole time.

I was one of the ones originally working on bringing AFO back online and can confirm that it can connect via the serial port.

Do you know how to get it working? Have you done it before, or do you just know that there's code to do it in there?

Looking at 1ST_READ.BIN, I was able to find debug strings referring to external and internal modems. There's a good chance that DC AFO can be converted to use the serial port with a Codebreaker code. I bet there's a line somewhere in the AFO source code that went something like "InitalizeModem(G2_MODEM);" that needs to be changed. It should be too hard to find (disassemble 1ST_READ, find something that accesses the modem or SCIF initialization registers, find the start of the function, search for something that calls that function and keep working backwards to the modem init function).

Edit:
I tried Toy Racer. It tried to use the BBA when I had it plugged in. With no modem, it said no device found. With a modem, it said no dial tone without anything over serial.

Edit 2:
I tried the VF4 Passport disc. It supports BBA, but not serial.

[SEGA RPG FAN]

Probably not much help, but as far as those AT commands (AT$N1=1&C0&D1)
N1=1 I'm not sure about. It doesn't seem standard but could be trying to set the port speed.
&C0 = DCD on
&D1 = DTR drop causes modem to go back to command mode without disconnecting

&D is a different command then just D. It's not a dial command.

[TapamN]

Oh, my mistake. I'll try again later, but with the script returning "OK" for that line. (I had my DC set to dial the number "1" to connect to the script, which is why I thought the D1 was a dial command that didn't specify touch/pulse.)

[colgate]

I wonder if this capability was added only in the last dev kits, it might explain why almost no games seem to use it .

Nice find about the Easter egg!

[dude2207]

Yo there, another pit of information to throw on the pile. Was looking through the files of Sakura Taisen Online and in the folder /DPWWW/HELP/ there are 4 help HTML files. HELP0 says no network device is connected, HELP1 says Failed to connect to the line using the modem, and HELP2 says Failed to connect to the line using the BBA. The interesting file happens to be HELP3, which says "Failed to connect to the line using the device connected to the serial terminal." Probably just something left over from development, but who knows? Maybe it's worth digging into if someone is bored.