Broadband adapter

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A black Dreamcast broadband adapter

The Dreamcast Broadband Adapter (HIT-400, sometimes HIT-401; HIT-401 is written on the Japanese box, but HIT-400 is on the peripheral's underside sticker), often abbreviated BBA, is a 10/100mbit network adapter for the Dreamcast based on the Realtek 8139C chip. It connects to the G2 bus in place of the modem, and it was released in Japan and in the United States. Despite not seeing a release in PAL regions, some PAL game software is actually compatible with it, such as Toy Racer and Phantasy Star Online.[1] It is a different piece of hardware than the Dreamcast LAN Adapter.

Broadband Adapters were made in both black and white colors, although the black ones were only available via online order from CSI in Japan.[2] Fewer than 2000 black ones were made due to low demand during the window of opportunity to pre-order them (December 1, 2001 to December 28, 2001), and they cost 8,800 yen (the same price as the white ones[3]).[4] Also, an R7 Limited Edition console + broadband adapter bundle was sold by CSI for a limited time, however it is not clear if these consoles were sold with black adapters.[5] Contrary to popular belief, in Japan broadband adapters were only sold by CSI, not by Sega themselves.[6] In the US, however, they could be bought in stores or from Sega's online store for $60.[7]

Note that, hardware-wise, all broadband adapters are identical (except MAC addresses, as those are meant to be unique to each device[8]) and therefore are not region-locked. In many cases, they even have the same FCC sticker on the bottom of each unit irrespective of the region in which they were sold, although some have a sticker without the FCC logo on them.[9] The only major difference between the Japanese and North American releases was the packaging, as they had different boxes and manuals, and the Japanese box also included the Broadband Passport web browser.

Due to their release towards the end of the Dreamcast's official lifespan, broadband adapters are somewhat uncommon peripherals and are only supported by a handful of games,[10] but they are useful for playing supported networked games and linking to a computer for programming, debugging, and dumping GD-ROMs. The Dreamcast Karaoke Unit also could access the DreamKara service by way of the Broadband Adapter.[11]

Though there is no direct source for the exact number of broadband adapters produced, it is actually possible to estimate how many there are due to the way in which MAC addresses work. Each MAC address consists of 6 bytes AA:BB:CC:DD:EE:FF, with the leading bytes all 00:d0:f1 (the MAC address range owned by SEGA). The next 3 bytes are meant to be unique, and it appears that all broadband adapters have '02' or '03' in byte 'DD'. Dreamcast LAN Adapters appear to share the '02' byte. Since 2 bytes hold 65,536 values, this means that within each '02' and '03' MAC address group there are 65,536 possible devices. As it is currently unknown if there are '00' or '01' groups, this means we can estimate that there are potentially 2 groups of 65,536 adapters, or 131,072 total BBAs and LAN adapters produced.

Tools

  • dcload-ip - A program made to transfer .bin and .elf files (and srec files, if specially configured for it) over the BBA. It also provides chainloaded programs with a standard syscall interface for communicating with a networked PC. Mostly intended for homebrew development.
  • httpd-ack - Most highly recommended GD-ROM dumping software
  • BBRip v1.2 - Now-obsolete Windows-only GD-ROM dumping software for use with dcload-ip (it is recommended to use httpd-ack instead)

Documents

References

  1. https://www.dreamcastlive.net/games
  2. http://web.archive.org/web/20020402231233/http://www3.csi-msp.com:80/bbsite/
  3. https://www.ign.com/articles/2000/06/16/dreamcast-broadband-on-display
  4. http://web.archive.org/web/20011227174405/http://www3.csi-msp.com/bbsite/web/news/news54.html
  5. http://web.archive.org/web/20020816021110/http://www3.csi-msp.com/bbsite/web/news/news69.html
  6. http://web.archive.org/web/20020606141349/http://www.sega.co.jp:80/bba/where.html
  7. http://web.archive.org/web/20010331175923/http://www.sega.com/sega/segastore/index.jhtml
  8. "The Ethernet - A Local Area Network", Version 2.0, Digital Equipment Corporation, Intel Corporation, Xerox Corporation, November 1982, p. 24.
  9. It appears that those lacking the FCC logo were likely built before Sega Enterprises became Sega Corporation in November 2000, as they state "Sega Enterprises" instead of "Sega Corporation." This is purely a cosmetic difference.
  10. https://www.dreamcastlive.net/games
  11. For some reason the text on this page is white on a white background. Highlight the whole page to see it: http://web.archive.org/web/20010413170305/http://www.sega.co.jp/sega/kara/dc_kara/bba/bba.html