Hard C1 Checker and Dev.Cas HKT-11

Heres some pics of these units if you havent seen them before - I just took a picture

 

Thanks for sharing!

 

Nice! Never seen that kind of DC before. It sure looks strange!

 

omg 1+3+3=7 ...

? internal pics ?

:clap::clap::clap: Great piece of collection ...

 

Cool stuff...
btw, could you explain what these units do?

 

Heres the backend of the dev.kas HKT-11

 

would you happen to know what the dev.cas unit was used for?

 

The dev.cas HKT-011 was for sound development
The Hard C1 checker was an address checker for finding game bugs - the game would crash and the light would go on

 

cool stuff

 

Legion if you are still available to discuss, do you have any idea how the HKT-11 was utilised by sound developers?

The units attached to the HKT-11 appear to be standard retails (although I did see an image of an adapted one for the debug checker).

I see the MIDI I/O and presume that the developers can track MIDI events, but surely the HKT-030 (Midi Module) and Katana kits were much more advanced and far better equipped to deal with MIDI development.

After all the actual MIDI material would be created using studio equipment, be it Mac's or whatever running Cubase whilst the HKT-030 would presumably be the reference module for the available palette of MIDI patches?

Curious indeed as NOTHING other than this post appears on the net. Like these kits landed from Mars! ;-)

 

Parris: Legion is still around, so he will probably reply, sooner or later Sir !

 

Thanks! I know he is on his travels very shortly, so wanted to catch him prior to departure ;-) <although AG is available everywhere, he might have no direct PC access or be too busy soon>

 

You can always check upon his activities through his profile.

 

Okay, I was keen to find out more about this unit, so thanks to Drussian for setting up a mutually agreeable trade with the original owner. The Dreamcast astride the unit is a standard retail unit and reads retail discs. My version is NTSC U, however there is no video output from the HKT-11 so you should be able to just connect up a PAL unit if you prefered. It's also a standard 9v walwart PSU, so no issues with regional voltage problems if you obtain an appropriate adapter. It does however have 4 dip presumably related to the region of the disc.

So, here is the HKT-11 PCB. (Just added better image as previous was a little blurred)



Underside (boring I'm afriad, no hidden chips or anything);



It's pretty straight forward looking, but curiously it contains NO sound chips. I was half expecting a Yamaha XG/GM Midi chip, but nothing like that at all.

Instead it has an Altera MAX 7000 (PLD; Programmable Logic Device) detailed here: http://docs-asia.electrocomponents.com/webdocs/0117/0900766b8011788f.pdf

...plus a Fujitsu SCSI controller chip.

In the middle of the board is "PC BD SET7 MAIN", plus on the front there is an "Access" light.

In the original auction there were 2 WinCE Dreamcast development discs and it's not a huge leap of faith to think those discs were connected to the 2 HKT-11 kits being auctioned, although they were never placed together or mentioned in the same breath.

The writing on the front says "Dreamcast Dev CAS (not Kas) HKT-11" and the only CAS I know relates to Networking.

So, would anyone like to hazard a guess as to whether in actual fact this unit was akin to the Xbox Beta Live kit? It has a serial output which was possibly (given the text on the PCB) meant to connect directly to a PC rather than the Katana.

What if this was a means of testing Sega's online content? The HKT-11 could be part of the Sega's online development system to establish whether content would run on the retail unit?

Any ideas? Clearly this is a hypothesis. It's made with limited experience of the unit and having not yet obtained the WinCE disc from the previous owner. I'd like to test the theory out, but if it's like the Xbox Beta Live system, it's probably the case that they are defunkt! However, the WinCE discs in the right hands may permit content to be produced on a PC and sent to the HKT-11.

I can't see their purpose & use for sound development given that the HKT-030 exists and any MIDI material would be produced using studio equipment (as stated before).

Thanks to Drussian & Diddydonn for listening to my meanderings and adding their own input. If I am wholly wrong, it's not their fault as I ventured the idea. If I am correct, then they atleast added flesh to a rather ignorant bone!

....discuss..... <or laugh! If this is just nonsense, then atleast it provides some Eye Candy. I still don't understand the MIDI I/O, so would love someone to come back with a manual or something more concrete than my ramblings.> ;-)











Connection from DC to HKT-11

 

This is a weird box. It contains all the "important" connectors from a Set 5. It's missing the video outputs (provided by the attached DC), serial port, GD-Writer, and the rotary switch on the front for region selection (which again, the attached DC would provide).

But no separate hard drive like a Set 5. And the motherboard of the HKT-11 has solder pads for a variety of chips, all of which aren't there.

Bizarre. A debug kit for retail games which could be run against Codescape on the PC side for real-time debug of GD-Rs or even retails? A mini-dev kit where the PC provides the hard drive for GD-R emulation? Or perhaps it just requires physical media?

I'm doubtful of the network debug simply because it would be impossible to test broadband on this. The side-port is covered and there's no pass-thru or jack on the box itself. Same goes for modem, though an external modem could perhaps be hooked up to the serial port, though I've found that the serial was used for debug output 99% of the time.

I'm also doubtful it was for sound dev since the HKT-30 exists.

The Set 7 silkscreen is also interesting since all the previous dev kits were known as Set X.

My personal theory is that it's a debug station or mini-dev kit and that FPGA in the center acts as the debug "host" passing data between the DC bus and the PC for Codescape and the like. It was likely far cheaper for Sega to produce this than a full Set 5 tower since all of the DC hardware itself already exists in the retail console.

 

My only addition to that is that in 1999 most people would have been thinking of 33k modems and not broadband, however I am not sure of when Sega (or others) really decided to impliment those developments. Perhaps they were fundamentals from the off?

If this was a useful, necessary and invaluable piece of kit to a developer, surely we'd have seen them before now? I literally cannot find mentioned of them at all online (you (PeekB) have been looking through official documentation) and the fact Mark hasn't stumbled across the unit or mention of it is odd.

During our conversation I was also interested in the fact that SET7 relates to later development material, so effectively this is a long way up the developmental ladder. The PC / DC idea is interesting, the idea that perhaps the Katana in some instances was just not required so this stripped down version could utilise the PC hardware and just use a retail DC for that side of things.

Again, why are these the only 2 that have thus far surfaced? Curious boxes indeed!

 

The units full name is the hkt-1130, its a curious labelling as it is the only dreamcast dev hardware listed (that i can find) that has 30 as the last two digits, the Katana has numbers in the 20`s i.e. 0120, The sound box was the 0300 but the 3 is just coincedental i`d imagine.

As the dev cas mentions the SET 7, which you would assume would come after the SET5 maybe we can conclude the boards which had originally been manufactured for some other SEGA dev hardware had some of their chips removed at a later date as they proved obsolete and perhaps expensive for a task which didnt require them. This would mean the boards were created in 1999 but the dev.cas could`ve come out at any time.

*edit* The retail DC unit is model number 3030, so that could be the reason for the numbering 1130 on the dev cas.

 

Dr. D, can you go open that PAL DC with the additional RS232 for me please. Can you get images and / or check where the LED, Pizo switch and RS232 are connected too? Is there perhaps an additional PCB in your unit or is it just a simple job as I'd like to replicate? Would like to run checker, but hey without the C1 Checker it'll be a no go.

 

Error LED and reset switch PCB. It`s secured with a lot of glue. The PCB reads SEGA 2000 made in Japan and has the correct corresponding board markings to the components, so it was created professionally using official materials.


RS-232 connection


will update with clearer pics soon, my camera is out of action.

The RS-232 connections PCB board. One set of wires going straight to the power supply so it can power the C1/C2 add-on unit, the other is a data connection to the GD-ROM drive so error checking data registers on the C1/C2 add-on.

 

One way you may be able to gain insight into the purpose of the Dev.Cas unit is to hook it up to a SCSI card and see what it identifies itself or its hardware as when the PC boots (I know the Adaptec AHA-2940UW does this).

As has already been said, it makes sense that it may have been a stripped down version of the Katana tower, pooling resources like the GD-ROM from a retail unit. I'd be interested in knowing if the serial on the unit DRussian has goes back to the serial out on the retail unit and acts as a coder's cable type of interface. This would be the replacement for the serial on the back of the Katana if it is indeed part of some prototype mini development kit.

I doubt the WinCE software was part of this. The revision on it was 2.0. Since this hardware seems newer, if this unit was going to be supported by the WinCE SDK there should be information in the readily available Dreamcast WinCE 2.1 SDK. However, the other software interests me.