FOUND: Rare SEGA Dreamcast Dev Kit & Prototype Software!

[@MetalJesusRocks]

I should add that the museum at RE-PC is completely FREE, so swing by if you are in the area and check out their cool stuff!

[@marc_leblanc]

That would be a fun visit.

[@kirkanos3968]

Wish i was closer looks amazing

[@pizzaishappiness7994]

Sweet

[@leeartlee915]

I’m surprised this showed up in Washington. Seems like the kind of thing that would be down in the Bay Area.

[@allanau]

I gotta got RE-PC sounds like they have some fun stuff. I’m in Edmonton, Alberta and we only someone’s encounter rare stuff like that.

[@rancid_]

Amazed at this man's knowledge of the Dreamcast and how to use the dev kit. Love when people are so passionate about what they do, it's contagious.

[@elgatofelix8917]

Aside from have more I/O than a regular Dreamcast and being able to play games from any region I don't see how this is any better than a regular Dreamcast. Sure it's more rare and somewhat of a novelty but so what? It takes up far more real estate and ultimately just looks like a standard desktop computer.

[@fcukugimmeausername]

@@elgatofelix8917 Not sure if kidding...

[@LaEsquinadelOcio]

@@elgatofelix8917 oh God... there's always THAT guy.

[@dxtremecaliber]

@@elgatofelix8917huh?????????

[@justz00t48]

A Dreamcast devkit with documents and software walking in the door is ridiculously unbelievable.

[@TubbyJ420]

7:11 the Sega Smash Pack game was developed by 1 person. He left a text file in the retail game disc that gave hackers/modders instructions on how to add their own Genesis ROMs and build a custom disc. I still have a 2 cd-r home made version my friend made that has the entire library.

[@JosiahGould]

Good old Uncle Sonic.

[@JetSetTyler]

that’s so cool

[@theodorerelic2718]

I have a retail version of Sega Smash Pack 1, so I'm not sure it's the same as what you describe. But while I didn't find a test file of that sort, I did find one that enabled cheats in Virtua Cop 2 (which was included in the set), like Big Head Mode, Mirror Mode and Random Mode. Heh, I should have tried Big Head Mode when I first got this 20+ years ago :) There's also a PC version of Sega Swirl as well.

[@Michaelhernandez708]

Long live the dreamcast. Such an awesome system.

[@bigfathergameroom4433]

I just played power stone not to long ago, Dreamcast is never dead ☠️ still alive💯 my children

[@octosalias5785]

🤘Dreamcast🤘

[@onelead]

Yeah

[@antiquefuturistic]

@@bigfathergameroom4433The Dreamcast is more alive than ever. Since 2001 there has been more than 100 commercial indie games developed and released on Dreamcast online support by fans never died.

[@john_mccarthy_hi]

underrated and underappreciated

[@jdrukman]

What an amazing piece of history, just literally dropped on your doorstep. It’s in remarkably good shape for being nearly 25 years old!

[@GeordiLaForgery]

There's probably a sad story behind it being dropped off but at least it's being appreciated now and hopefully will be for generations.

[@elgatofelix8917]

It would be more "amazing" if it were one of a kind, but it's not. Sure they're rare compared to a regular Dreamcast but there obviously are more of these out there. They just happened to get lucky. I'm more interested to know who donated and how they got ahold of it in the first place. That's a story that unfortunately will never be told...

[@timhensley3695]

​@@elgatofelix8917me too 😢

[@dxtremecaliber]

@@elgatofelix8917huh?????????

[@tehprogramerer]

Some corrections/more information. The unit he pointed to claiming it was the motherboard is just the GD-ROM drive. Above that is the Debug Adapter, which is connected to the motherboard above it. The slide switch allows the Boot ROM to be flashed. The four DIP switches control video (first two) and the rightmost one is for a self-check mode. The Katana board cannot be interchanged with a retail unit as they have different layouts and connectors. Extension I/O can be used with SCSI hard drives to enable more development storage for GD images. LINE is for the modem, there's also a LAN unit of this kit. SERIAL is functionally the same as on a retail unit. The demonstration of Codescape is not what you would do to debug a game. CodeWarrior is one of the many compiler/linker/assembler suites available alongside those from Cygnus, Hitachi, and Microsoft. GD Workshop is what you would use day-to-day when game content has been updated/added/removed. There's a separate tool for authoring the final disc layout (CD Craft), though GD Workshop can be used to generate the script for it. IP Maker is for the creating the Initial Program, which is the first thing that lives on the disc and is a kind of bootloader as well as what restricts/enables/disables certain features like if the program is for Windows CE, peripheral support, and regions. I apologise for the pedantry. I'm a developer and I didn't want misleading or incorrect information out there.

[@MetalJesusRocks]

Thanks for the clarification! Chris did his best to research as much of this as possible, but the info was hard to find and sometimes contradictory. Good to hear from somebody who actually used one!

[@chris-headway]

I definitely appreciate you clearing that up, my research was severely limited and I was going off what I could gather from a few forum posts and another KZbin video.

[@tehprogramerer]

@@chris-headway No worries. It's definitely not the easiest information to come by.

[@myrandom603]

Such a great find, so much better to see this being rescued and saved versus just getting tossed. Thanks for sharing MJR!

[@MetalJesusRocks]

You bet

[@DreamcasticChannel]

Very cool stuff! Small correction: The phone line on the back isn't just for development purposes. It can be used with games that support online play. I actually know someone that plays online with their devkit. lol

[@solidsnakeandgrayfox]

Dang super crazy

[@oscodains]

It’s great Re PC has the fortitude to not just peddle off pieces of history, but preserves things that are too important to sell into personal private collections.

[@duscha55]

Visual Park was the pack-in software for the Dream Eye camera. You can also use the camera with batteries and take pictures outside (like any other camera) then get back to the dreamcast and upload them to a Vmu and send them to friends.

[@antiquefuturistic]

Ahead of its time

[@FatNorthernBigot]

A dev kit for my favourite console? This is gonna be good.

[@HelvecioGomes]

It's so nostalgic to see windows 98 running. I remember using it a lot back in the days.

[@MetalJesusRocks]

Yep! And it still runs really quick too.

[@JetSetTyler]

Dude It makes me happy to see these kits being preserved, and thank you MJR for documenting it 👏🏽 the dc meant a lot to me growing up, and it feels like more and more people I talk to have forgotten about it 😢

[@MetalJesusRocks]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@kbhasi]

For those who may be wondering, and if I recall correctly, Windows releases based on MS-DOS, such as Windows 98, never had native support for Unicode, hence the need to use a Japanese localised release in order to correctly display Japanese UIs like can be seen at 9:17 into the video. As far as I could tell, with NT-based Windows releases, at least as far back as Windows 2000 or XP, UTF-8 was used on all UI language options. (edit: I was partially correct. It's actually UTF-16!) (8:31) "Log Off aaaa…" in the Start menu. 😆

[@xan1242]

Not UTF-8 but 16. Lots of this still remains in Win32 API to this day.

[@kbhasi]

@@xan1242 Oh. Thanks for correcting me!

[@prezidenttrump5171]

You didn't remember anything. You just google everything and pass it off as your own knowledge you total joke.

[@aleksandrbmelnikov]

The start of writing Windows NT began with moving over to unicode and also porting it to run on MIPS (RISC) architecture.

[@aleksandrbmelnikov]

Millennium (MS' red-headed stepchild), was their failed attempt to make NT run under DOS. It was a dead end upgrade path. You can't install 2K or XP over top Me.

[@draggonhedd]

Amazing!!! A DC Dev Kit is on my bucket list collectibles for sure. The GD Writer is probably the single rarest part of all of this kit. Absolutely STUNNED it was found.

[@krono5el]

Saturn and Dreamcast gave me and my buds the best gaming memories of our lives. this is super cool.

[@dev0range]

I'm really glad they saved this, that's amazing!

[@jpetersongaming]

mind officially blown

[@engagevr]

Very cool huge Dreamcast fan glad you guys kept it and shared for us too see, there's a store here in LA that found a original Dreamcast kiosk in their store they have it up and running now it was used to display, play and demo Dreamcast games on it in stores, what you guys have is a true Gem

[@jpetersongaming]

A digital camera add-on?!?! That is pretty cool. Developing games today for Dreamcast would be sweet to see! Sometimes I wonder what could have been if the Dreamcast had just stuck around a little bit longer....

[@Domspun]

Japan got it before Sega killed it. I once setup my Dreamcast with keyboard, mouse and camera. Looked like I had a PC.

[@jpetersongaming]

@@Domspun I guess it was more successful in Japan... and yes, the DC was powerful! I remember using keyboard/mouse playing Unreal Tournament

[@MrMario2011]

Amazing donation, glad they're putting it up to display and they can maintain it. Really awesome to see how knowledgeable the owner is with setting up and operating it as well!

[@RustyGonzo]

This is SO fascinating! I loved the Dreamcast era and I will forever lament how short-lived it ended up being.

[@LuxuryNightmare]

Dev Kits and PC games are my favorite videos. Awesome video!

[@WolfysEyes]

What a lucky find for that store location, and even better that they're doing everything possible to preserve it.

[@MrGameNfit]

I cant believe someone just dropped this off. It all looks to be in excellent condition which makes me think it was a very generous collector who didnt want money for it.

[@albey1816]

More like a deceased estate. The person who dropped it off is just clearing out the stuff they had?

[@MrGameNfit]

@@albey1816 yeah thats another good possibility. Just so strange it was in such great condition and the person didn't realize what they had?

[@ApolloVIIIYouAreGoForTLI]

@@albey1816 Thats what I was thinking... Not that people aren't generous but I'd imagine if they knew what they had & wanted to donate it that they would get in touch with someone first.

[@mjdf122]

Metal Jesus And The Sega Dreamcast

[@FatalistDC]

As an owner too of Dreamcast Dev kits this is a great find!. The Visual Park software was made to work in conjunction with the Dreamcast camera, the DreamEye. Unfortunately DreamEye only was released to the market in Japan. Very good that together with the Dev Kit and the discs, DC System Disc 2 etc there is also the documentation.

[@MetalJesusRocks]

Thanks for the info!

[@MusharnaMush]

Wow this is cool as heck. Thanks for sharing MJR. Dreamcast is such a cool system

[@MetalJesusRocks]

It really is!

[@timezones88]

Absolutely loved this video. Being able to take an unexpected trip back in time never gets old. Thank you MJR & RE-PC!!!

[@MetalJesusRocks]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@cherrycreamsoda4253]

arguably one of the most underrated systems of all time.

[@wertywerrtyson5529]

At the time for sure. But it’s gotten plenty of recognition in the years since. I was saving up for the release of the PS2 but realised it would be too expensive and I was impatient to get something better than my PS1 so I got the Dreamcast on a whim along with Dead or Alive 2. It looked so amazing at the time. And when Shenmue came out it felt like I was living in a virtual world. I had never played anything like it. This was before GTA3 so just being able to walk around in an open world (not so open by modern standards though) and open any drawer made me feel like I was in 1986 Japan despite being in a small cabin in the woods in Sweden playing on a small 14 inch TV. In Sweden it is fairly common to have a fritidshus which translates to free time house. A house you go to on weekends or vacations to get away from the city and I always brought my Dreamcast with me when mom took us there. And I would spend hour after hour exploring every part of the world in Shenmue. Not to mention Skies of Arcadia that at the time I thought was as good as games needed to look ever and the airships battles are unbeaten even today in JRPGs. I so much would want a sequel. I even recently paid way too much for the GameCube version of the game just to finally experience the new content.

[@LordDeBahs]

@@JB-mm5ff when it comes buttons and controls its good controler with quality dpad . original xbox controler was kinda inspired by dreamcast one but shit dpad

[@LordDeBahs]

@@JB-mm5ff artisticaly its not pretty controler indeed but handling that thing feels so natural . its blueprint for xbox like ones these days

[@Tremadog102]

@@JB-mm5ff I don't understand how the DC can be the worst controller ever. It's a fairly standard pad with the cable sticking out the wrong way. The N64 requires you to be a three-handed mutant to reach all the buttons at once. I think people like to give the N64 controller a pass considering it's non-ergonomic layout...

[@GeorgeArthurJr]

Awesome stuff to see. Great video and awesome to see that functional. I used to work in a retail store that does a lot of electronics recycling and would see all sorts of great old machines, hardware, computers, consoles all brought in and thrown in a bin to be shipped out to the recycle center. So much was most likely just salvaged for scraps. Hopefully someone was able to make use of some of that great stuff.

[@duffbiker]

Metaljesus be like "why you no drop off on my front porch" 😂😂😂

[@MetalJesusRocks]

THIS 👆 😂

[@patrickbourke2385]

This channel gives me so much joy. I have never played this console, my first was the PS1 which my dad got me for christmas, but hearing about these finds is fascinating

[@OmegaKatanaXIII]

This is so cool seeing a dev kit thats actually in good working condition that comes with the developer disk that developers used it.

[@Videogamearcade]

Ohh wow ! This was a deep dive in hardware perspective ... something that many of us haven’t seen 👍

[@johndd9140]

My God... what a find... thanks for showing us around, MJR and RE-PC! 👍👍👍

[@MetalJesusRocks]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@philipford6183]

So important functioning units like this are preserved in full working order. Good job!

[@MetalJesusRocks]

We agree!

[@swissmrkc]

How awesome Jason! Great video and a great story. Can't help but think about the ones that don't get saved. Awesome that this one escaped the scrapheap.! BEN VG Dads

[@bmhedgehog2]

I bet that Adam Korlick is having a field day seeing this. Man I wish I had one of these SDKs.

[@livefreeprintguns]

Man this is so cool... I *LOVE* the look of that debug tower too! RIP Dreamcast, we barely knew ye.

[@IRWPD]

That is super awesome. Love seeing what is used to make games.

[@KartKing4ever]

Man, this is great. I can't believe someone just dropped it off with no explanation. I like how in to it Chris seems as well. He seems like a cool guy.

[@James-fo8rf]

Is this the holy grail for sega? In the right hands this could be a serious piece of kit. Hopefully it will be used for the sega fans community. Fingers crossed 🤞

[@Robert-nl3fd]

YAAASSSS !!! The ONLY next best thing would be getting a mint condition set of Dreamcasts from every region

[@matthewelliott2213]

Priceless find! History! Imagine finding a pre-release SeaMan where he's less surly and hasn't realized he can fling poo at you....

[@daviddonnell2153]

Dude you always find the coolest stuff, you know the right people to get clearance to record things like this, can I be your best friend bro lol

[@arcaderacer586]

If I had this I would clone the hard drives while its working correctly so you can play around with it and have a backup if you mess sometbing up. This is so awesome

[@Horeteppe]

Oh yeah, love stuff like this! Good find!

[@jpetersongaming]

rare find indeed! Imagine developing games today??

[@Horeteppe]

@@jpetersongaming Indie devs are still making games for these older systems to this day!

[@jpetersongaming]

@@Horeteppereally??? My mind has been blown! Looking into this I think this will be my weekend project

[@Horeteppe]

@@jpetersongaming No problem buddy! The retro scene is absolutely alive and kicking with some nice projects here and there! I not to good at keeping up to date myself really lol

[@Itsdarkmoons]

I’ve been binge watching your videos dude, and then this new one came up. Awesome video!. Good to see you out and about.

[@MetalJesusRocks]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@Toddsnightmare]

The demo disc at 0:23 in your opening sequence, i completly forgot about playing MDK back in the 90s .that was cool to see again after all these years

[@JampackSam]

Crazy that someone would just drop off a slice of history! Killer video, MJR! 👍

[@williammcdowell3718]

Hopefully all the data could be dumped and archived for historical reasons.

[@MetalJesusRocks]

They plan to work with Kelsey and the Video Game History Foundation to do that.

[@Bobbias]

@@MetalJesusRocks That's great to hear.

[@XVa-uj8m]

A patched "Dream Studio" which can use Zip Disks would be a godsend. ;-)

[@davidskero]

It's crazy that someone had this dev kit for that long and the condition is that good!

[@ScattmanJon]

Awesome look at the dream cast dev kit. Btw I can't wait to meet you at retrogamecon in Syracuse NY.

[@MetalJesusRocks]

I'm really looking forward to that expo! See ya there. 👍

[@slfbm870]

Just the other day I was wondering if there were any videos about the Dreamcast dev kit around. Thanks, Metal Jesus!

[@winstonsmith478]

HOW could someone just drop that off for RECYCLING, in mint condition WITH documentation and software, and not know what it was and its value? It would be fascinating to know how THAT happened.

[@jpetersongaming]

Sounds like a potential movie!

[@yukizboy3046]

So crazy a piece of still functioning gaming history just basically shows up at your doorstep like that.

[@RougeOrange]

I love dev kits, especially ones that are given new life and appreciated! :)

[@jaxton7280]

I'm from Utah and I went to visit my aunt in Olympia back in 2019. When I went the 2 places on my list were Pink Gorilla in Seattle and RE-PC in Tukwilla. Obviously both from watching MJR. I still own all of my purchases from both. I really wish we had something like RE-PC in Utah. Such a cool store!

[@dirkjewitt5037]

When I lived in Seattle, i practically lived at the Re-PC store in downtown Seattle, by the stadium.

[@darktetsuya]

saw this thing on social media! cool that it's finally getting a video. props to them for adding it to the museum though that would be neat to see!!

[@NostalgiaForever100]

Filled with feeling, attending tours of yesteryear. It turned out great!

[@LucaMolteni84]

The very first GD Emu :) This unit could read ISO from an hard drive in 1999!

[@MrPancakeRepairman]

Heya Shiny Metal Jesus, you are top of my subs list. I'm a Gen-X'er (born in 76), but not particularly a retro gamer. I love a good game from CIV through Syndicate Wars, to "Welcome to Black Mesa", to "Snaaaaaake!!!", but I don't play so much so more, because art and study are my prime directives (when not working). That all said, you're kind of ASMR for me. I love to tune in and kind of live vcariously through you on a very "Saturday afternoon - what's MJR upto" kind of vibe. I love your travel vids, they're the best, but this is an absolute gem! I would say you don't acknowledge people you meet by name, and that sometimes comes off a little off-key (i.e. the Asian lady who had the immense collection on your recent trip to somewhere in Oregon - you didn't mention her by name - that felt really off-key dude. You should have given her props. Well, c'est la vie. I'm in Europe bruvner, (which country I'm sure you can guess). When are you heading our way buddy? Give London some love. This is a gem of a video old chap. All the best, DC.

[@JamesWon6]

Good video, thanks for the upload

[@MetalJesusRocks]

Glad you enjoyed it

[@WaifuEndMyLaifu]

I'm surprised nothing has been done with MDK in forever. I remember MDK 2 being a blast on my dreamcast

[@RetroGamingTings]

MDK! what a nostalgic throwback!

[@asgads]

Congrats

[@marcoc8712]

Thank You for this beautiful video!!! :)

[@MetalJesusRocks]

Glad you liked it!

[@TheMultiGunMan]

Wow! What an amazing find. I wish I had that.

[@Htbaa]

How cool to see this kit running!

[@diggielixx921]

So many fond memories of the DC. Crazy find. Thanks for sharing metal jesus!

[@MetalJesusRocks]

You bet!

[@antiquefuturistic]

Dreamcast’s library is one of the best for a console ever. Its amazing that how had Sega outdone themselves by completing and releasing so many good games is a matter of days during the very short life span of Dreamcast. Quality and Quantity together is a rare combination but Sega got you.

[@dovahkiin2108]

Nice to see someone who actually put effort into make the devkit work, not like those idiots that just hoard them in a display shelf.

[@matthewsmith3817]

This is so cool. The Dreamcast continues to fascinate.

[@3rdimpact918]

just hit me ive been watching for 9 years now geeze time flies

[@zogmorp]

ooh, get that Dreamcast dev kit to the Dreamcast homebrew community so we can get some homebrew games that actually look like DC games that would've come out in 1999!

[@ricorodriguez3579]

12:28, a Sega Zip drive! OMG, I had no clue. soooo cooooollll

[@dettloff7]

This way actually pretty cool stuff. Dude knew his stuff. Thanks MJR!

[@btarg1]

Preserving old devkits could mean that one day homebrew creators could more easily make their own games for retro consoles! Love to see this kind of preservation

[@8-bitmausoleum]

To be fair most homebrew games are dog shit though

[@n8ivegogo1]

This is soooo cool ‼️‼️ I think this is the first Dev Kit I’ve seen in action‼️😁

[@kriskula99]

I have a norwegian Dreamcast dev kit at home, its such a nice machine :D

[@Darkest_Soul_187]

Daaamn bro, you're getting heavier by a day. Do you wanna live to see the next generation of consoles?

[@akongas]

Dude! That’s awesome! I always wondered what happen to these! I truely hope you took a snap shot of the operating system first to back it up! Also please digitise all the notes and preserve them! I would love to see all this made available to the public! ❤

[@cj8489]

An amazing look back into history. Great job both of you for not only preserving this but bringing to our attention. 👊🏽

[@Tremadog102]

I can't believe this was just going out for recycling! Like pearls before swine, this is some real history that was just getting thrown out. Good job some people are trying to record and preserve gaming history.

[@Patrick-tw7nr]

I just moved to this area not that long ago. Happy to see another place I can visit. Went to Pink Gorilla Games University Store which was pretty cool. I found out they have a better store in Downtown Seattle so will go check that out too. I’m still hunting RE Code Veronica Dreamcast edition so hopefully they get one in by the time I visit

[@PenguinRevolution]

WOW, I just looked this thing up on eBay and there is only 1 listed for 10 grand. These things are rare and I can't believe someone tried to recycle this!

[@Mightyguybrush2]

The excitement from that guy is intoxicating.

[@TMoneyOG]

Very cool! The Dreamcast is such a fun system.

[@dave4shmups]

Awesome video! Thanks for sharing this! I will definitely visit RE:PC if I ever visit Seattle!

[@80s_Gamr]

That is just amazing that someone would just drop this off. Super cool.

[@brentsalassi5245]

I wasn't expecting to see an old coworker in the new MetalJesus video. Hey, Chris!

[@chris-headway]

Hi Brent!

[@brentsalassi5245]

Hope the PNW is treating you well.

[@chris-headway]

@@brentsalassi5245 they let me outside occasionally.

[@RetroGamingTings]

Another Awesome Video and cool find! Thanks MJR!

[@billyjefferson4641]

This is so cool i love to see a great peace of gaming history get saved like this

[@neophytealpha]

Imagine integrating devkit hardware for multiple platforms into a single powerful PC.

[@thebasketballhistorian3291]

I remember Sega Smash Pack! This game was pivotal to getting perfect Genesis emulation on the Dreamcast. The homebrew community found out the disc was just an emulator with ROMs of the games. They then figured out how to burn your own disc of ROMs with the emulator.

[@zlatkotaleski380]

@MetalJesusRocks have best intro in to the whole @youtube history

[@olafelsberry420]

Wowsers y'all got lucky to get all them with documents.

[@hacked2123]

Hope it's on a UPS. Would suck to find out lightning or a brown out took out something.

[@robbyandrews223]

Love me some RE-PC Tukwila, have gotten many cool things there.

[@_jamescube]

Nothing says museum like putting an exhibit in a popcorn machine.

[@MetalJesusRocks]

You should see where they have the Nintendo Dolphin console 😉