Dreamcast Devbox Bios on retail Console!

RaZiel has informed me that the hybrid BIOS with the Katana boot-up animation is incompatible with the black BBA.

Might be worth looking into, no idea if the black model has any differences hardware wise from the white.

 

Black BBA ? Such thing does exist ?

I mean isn't that just a HIT-400 with black plastic ?

I have my bios installed on three dreamcast consoles of different revisions. And an HIT-400 BBA. :shrug:

JPN with heatpipes
USA with heatpipes
PAL without heatpipes


No problem at all on any of the three...

 

I has a black cased HIT-300 "network adapter" (the one that only supports 10Mb/s) - maybe they are talking about that? It was a pretty useless piece of hardware, though - the only software I found that ever recognised it was the (Japanese) web browser disk that came with it.

 

There is also some homebrew that supports it, but that's about it.

 

HIT-300 is based on a Fujitsu PCMCIA Ethernet MAC/PHY combo chip along with a custom SEGA interface chip for G2 bus.

HIT-400 is based on Realtek RTL8139B or C (3.3v version) and SEGA 315-6310 PCI bridge chip (looks like it's a Toshiba made part btw).
And is marked "837-14081 171-8124F PC BD LANMARU2 FOR DC"

 

I'm pretty sure black BBAs do exist, they just were extremely uncommon. You'd have to ask him for a picture and confirmation of the part number.

I don't know why it isn't detected under the hacked BIOS but he said it wasn't. Wonder what is going on then.

 

Because it sounds like its the 10mb one that was useless.

Which would also mean the retail bios is "incompatible" too.

 

VA2

Has anyone successfully installed a pre-flashed(thanks Bad_Ad84) on a VA2.1 dc board? I installed one on a VA1 with no problem, works brilliantly. But the VA2.1 is notably different. Wondering where to connect leg 44 to? See attached pics of VA2.1 board.

Note: My apologies on the terrible underside photo(third photo) - I can post a better one later if needed.

Many thanks

 

Pin 9 of the flash chip.

Look to see if there is a trace/via connected to it. If not, solder directly to that leg.

Its only to enable writing to the chip. You could hardwire it so its not writable if you are never going to reflash it.

 

The 29LV002 chip seems to be the IC503 on the VA2.1 board, instead of the VA1 where it is IC502. So for bios chip replacement on the VA2.1, it appears new bios chip's leg 44 needs to be lifted and connected to IC503's leg 9, of which I cannot see an accessible via (unless there's one on the backside - haven't tried searching for it - but may be worth it to avoid that tricky 9 leg).

Is that right? I just wanted to be sure - but now that I've typed it all out - it seems to be obvious...

Thanks for your help Bad_Ad84.

 

Pin 22 lifted I cant find where the trace is could someone help me please thanks.

 

Awesome, got it working.

Picked up a few of these from eBay: http://www.ebay.com/itm/28077467718...DX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1952.l2649#ht_1290wt_905

Shipping was combined for ten cents more per additional item, so I ordered a few. Shipped in only 6 days from China to central US!

Although does anyone know how you would mod the bios the dashboard to get that watery effect? Would be awesome to have a Link83 Devkit region free bios and the cool eater dashboard thing.

This thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkHNyiJPZtk&feature=related

You did the trick of heating up the leg and then trying to lift it, I am guessing?

If you did that, you pulled and ripped the trace off. I would recommend cutting the leg, then just pulling the leg remains out with a soldering iron. Then you can bend that pin up on the original bios chip. That way, the trace will remain intact.

 

That's just from a game save, I believe it was the last Puyo Puyo game made for the Dreamcast that had that feature.

 

Pin 22 is not connected to anything as the chip operates in 8 bit mode (and pin 22 is used in 16 bit mode).

 

Thanks mate i had cold solder joints on my chip now works 100% cheers.

 

x

 

I could do some scans or high res pictures of my bba insides.

 

x

 

Mine seems to have a RTL8139C.
I am scaning mine now in high res.