DDH: The New Dreamcast Debug Handler

Here is some new information on a light version of DDH that might be available to other gamers in the future:

The “lite” version of the DDH is ready! What means “lite” ? :

– The hardware is in fact much smaller than the original one shown on the pics.
– Its easier to build, and the connections needed to the Dreamcast was reduced to 16 (instead of 40)
– It has *ALL* the functions like the original DDH.
– It no longer uses the parallel port but the CommsLink card, which is well known from PSX side.
This improves the speed for up/downloading by 200% (!) and makes the HW even easier to build.

– And at last: The plans for this will be made public! (this is what I wanted to do this weekend,
but I ran out of time)

We need to do some minor tests on this hardware (which I wanted to do this weekend too), but it seems to run stable enough to release.

At last some words to a few people, emailing/asking me about GD stuff…:

– General: The GD track can contain more than 650MB of data – thus it’s mainly not possible to copy it!
– If we had the possibility to do so, we won’t ! It’s not our task/goal…
– After the release of the CDX package, many people think that this will open the door to copies!
That’s not true! DC discards the file system after booting this CD, and they just restart it by using some special reset-trick to re-enable the GD (!) – File system ! GD – not CD !

ORIGINAL STORY:

A new “reverse-engineered” device has been made by the folks at Hitmen. Titled DDH, it adds many new features to the Dreamcast, including toggling country protection (do I smell import gaming?), in-game control (get unlimited whatever you want), and you can even port code to your Dreamcast, and change some images around on the main DC boot screens. Here is some more info on the DOS “Main Deck” (the program that is on the PC, and connects to the DC via parallel port):

It allows you to gain full control over you Dreamcast like …

– Memory dump/edit over the full range.
– Disassembly over the full range.
– Up / download of files between DC and Host.
– Search engine (ASCII / Hex).
– Console mode.
And yes, you can even make your own technical demos with it, and save it to your computer in AVI format. You can check out more on this project here, and later, we’ll tell you about a ‘lite’ version that may soon be available to gamers.