After the success of Project Genesis and Project TG-16, I have my next project to work on - a Sega Dreamcast. I've never played a Dreamcast before - in fact I know very little about the system. What I do know is the console was probably one of the most underrated and overlooked video game consoles of all time. It was ahead of its time in many ways. The Dreamcast was the first console to offer built-in network and Internet connectivity, it was the first to offer progressive video output, the first 128-bit system, I believe it was the first to offer a keyboard and mouse, and it had a lot of unique titles not found on any other console. Add to that it was about half the price of competing systems. Unfortunately the console was short-lived.
I recently picked up a Dreamcast off eBay. I got the console, two controllers, a VMU, Unreal Tournament, and power and video cables all for $20 delivered. The reason the console was so cheap is because it's "broken." It may sound odd, but I'd actually rather get a broken Dreamcast than a working one. Why you might ask? Well fixing a console is as much fun as playing it in my opinion. And after fixing it up I'm going to mod the console to improve it and make it special and unique. I'll document the entire process here. Unlike Project Genesis and TG-16, I'm going to document this as I go. Both of those projects I completed them before making a single post. But this one I'll post as I go, which hopefully will help others to see how I go about trying to diagnose, repair, and mod the console.
Before I talk about the repair efforts, I wanted to give my impressions of the console. First, I am surprised by the size of the console. It's a very small console. Secondly, the controllers feel nicer than I was expecting. I especially like the analog thumbstick. It's been my opinion that most analog thumbsticks are stiff and/or move in a clunky manor. But the Dreamcasts thumbsticks are (pardon the expression) a dream!
Next time I'll get into the repair efforts on the console.
I bought a Dreamcast around the early part of the 2000s. I believe I bought it at a Black Friday event for $50. I loved the system, by the time I stopped playing with it I probably had roughly 20-25 games for it. Moving to California I ended up giving it to Goodwill.
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