Contents  Introduction  Compiling Our  First Program  Printable version  Discuss this article  in the forums The Series  Part I  Part II

Disclaimer: Please be aware that all information is provided as-is, and may be used at your own risk. "Sega" and "Dreamcast" are trademarks of Sega Enterprises. All information here has derived from my own experience. Nothing in this document is under any type of NDA nor does it include any information from the official dreamcast development kit.

Introduction

Dreamcast hacking, or tinkering as you might call it, has exploded all over the game console homebrew scene over the past few months. In reality console programming is not really that new. But most people like myself never really took part in it because it was very difficult and expensive to get started. But now the Dreamcast provides us with a relatively simple interface to get our feet wet in console programming. No more ASM-only coding or non-existant FREE libraries. We now have an easy way to program our Dreamcasts thanks to the hard work done by some very talented coders like Dan Potter, Marcus Comstedt, Hitmen and many others.

What you need to do before we start

This is just a simply guide to get you started in DC programming it is by no means complete.

The goal of this series is to get experienced game programmers into DC coding. Thus it is missing all those nice hand-holding beginner’s steps.

Getting Started

Here is a list of the hardware and software you will need in order to get started developing for your Dreamcast.

1. Sega Dreamcast Console - $99.95 At a Major Retail Store

2. PC to Dreamcast Serial Adaptor (Must be custom-built). Instructions to build one yourself can be found here - about $35.00-$45.00

3. Linux or Windows PC with GCC installed and configured to cross-compile for the SH-4 processor. Instructions can be found here - FREE (Optional: you should also cross-compile GCC for the ARM processor too)

4. Next you’ll want to grab:

   	libdream 0.6	Simply FREE Dreamcast library - FREE
   	libc 1.1	Provides some basic functions that well need - FREE
   	uploader.py	Used to upload our program to our Dreamcast *Only for Linux*
   	DCUploader 2.01	Windows based upload util - FREE

5. Dreamcast Serial Slave CD - FREE Download here. Instructions for burning a CD can be found on the same page.

Putting Everything Together

I’m not going to kid you, setting up all this stuff can be a long process if you’ve never done anything like this before. So you better plan on spending at least a day working on it. Also choose your OS carefully. Cygwin under Win32 works fine but using Linux has so many other advantages. I would recommend that if you do have Linux experience then go with Linux, otherwise use Windows. Make sure you follow all the steps outlined on the above sites for creating the necessary tools e.g. Serial Cable, GCC-Cross Compiler, Serial Slave CD cross-compiler.

Next : Compiling Our First Program