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3rd Party Broadband Adapters?!?!

luvless - Sep 30, 2001

		luvless	Sep 30, 2001
		hey all.. well i can't afford $130 and up for a BBA on ebay.. so i had the great idea.. of convincing someone with a dc liscense to produce hardware.. to make a bba.. i've met a few bigwigs @ mad-catz and other 3rd party houses during GDC and E3.. what i'd need from you guys before i mentioned it to them is: how much you'd spend on one.. would you order online.. would you buy it retail.. would you preorder it.. how long you'd wait for it to show (if you preordered it).. note.. i'm not promising anything.. i'm just trying to get a feel for if it's something i'd be able to convince them to do.. thanx in advance -me

		MasterAkumaMatata	Oct 1, 2001
		I'd spend $50 at most. online order is fine.

		ExCyber	Oct 1, 2001
		By the way, if you can really get in touch with these guys, be sure to tell them that the Ethernet chip needed is pretty cheap - it and its relatives have a tendency to show up on $10-$15 PC Ethernet cards. A PCI bridge chip is also necessary, but it might be reasonably cheap to license that from Sega (or maybe they even have some stock that could be bought...). I'd definitely be willing to spend $50. Once I actually get some income that number would probably go up. $10 or $20.

		luvless	Oct 1, 2001
		ExCyber.. ya the big problem i saw with the idea was/is profit margin.. once you consider.. liscensing.. parts.. dev time (if they can't just grab it outright from Sega).. factory setup.. and the cost of running the product.. it doesn't leave much in the way of profit.. so it's definately a hard sell.. my best hope for this is to get some sega personnel to support the idea giving a liscense and the plans for the BBA to some 3rd party.. and the only way i can do this is to give sega a heads up on how they tend to abuse their customers.. by that i mean how the PSO 2 liscense is.. how there never was a retail release of the BBA.. how some customers never got theirs.. and junk like that.. don't flame me here about my views on how sega treats it's customers.. save that for another thread.. as i'm trying to do good here.. -me

		Service Games	Oct 1, 2001
		OOOHH Me! Me! I want one. Tell me where to order, Im there. (Edited by Service Games at 10:42 am on Oct. 1, 2001)

		opiumeater	Oct 1, 2001
		The bba's are selling out real fast and are harder and harder to get. Check ebays prices, that will show you what I mean.

		Shinshiro	Oct 2, 2001
		what they need to do if a 3rd party makes a broadband adapter is make it compatible with PPPoE broadband connections to start with!! (can you tell i have a PPPoE connection? hehe) then make some sort of software bypass that allows ALL (or most) dc online games to be compatible with that broadband adapter (i guess PSO v2 couldnt be done at all but the rest theoretically could be done) if they pull all that off then i would pay easily up to $100 bucks for it and if anyone ever does pull all that off then i would worship them for years to come

		Cynnamin	Oct 2, 2001
		PPPoE compatibility&@(&($@ I got a BBA for 60$ a month or so ago and I can't even use the #### thing without having to set up another fscking machine to route my connection so I can use my fscking dsl... IF they do go through with this, they need to make sure it can use PPPoE. They will have a HUGE consumer market... check some DC boards and see how many pissed off folks there are that have PPPoE and BBAs. grr I'd spend {with shipping} approximately 80$ on one if it worked with PPPoE AND came with the neccessary discs to set up...

		ExCyber	Oct 2, 2001
		I'm pretty sure that support for PPPoE has to be in the games. It might be possible to put something in a BBA clone to proxy the connection and make it look like a normal IP connection, but then the price would probably go through the roof due to the processor(s) and memory that would have to be added to do so, plus the additional development time it would take.

		Cynnamin	Oct 2, 2001
		All the BBA's are is a fairly simple NIC that uses DHCP... I don't see how hard it would be to set it up to use another protocol... If you can dial a dreamcast into a PC via a NIC and then route the dreamcast out onto your broadband connection, it can't be that difficult to make a BBA that supports PPPoE. sigh

		3rdman	Oct 2, 2001
		EDIT: I just re-read the posts above and would agree that it would rock! To be able to go online through DSL with all my games would be the only thing that would entice me to purchase one. Is it possible?? I doubt you'll have much luck in getting these made. Hardly any games support it and the majoirty of people buying it want it for reasons other than playing. If you do make 'em, give us a head's up so I can sell mine. (Edited by 3rdman at 5:23 pm on Oct. 2, 2001)

		ExCyber	Oct 2, 2001
		I didn't say it would be really diificult, just expensive and time-consumng compared to a straight BBA clone. The problem isn't lack of PPPoE support in the BBA. The BBA doesn't really support anything besides Ethernet - that's not its job. The problem is that certain games (PSO and Outtrigger are the culprits from what I hear) simply aren't coded to support PPPoE, so the only way to make a BBA that makes these games work with PPPoE is to add an embedded computer into the BBA to act as a gateway that provides a supported connection type.

		luvless	Oct 3, 2001
		ok.. so.. PPPoE.. i'll have to dig up a few old bus cards and see if i know anyone who might be able to give me a better handle on that.. btw folks.. thanx greatly for the feedback.. it helps massive amounts

		ExCyber	Oct 3, 2001
		I was thinking about it, and if embedded hardware/software were added to a BBA to proxy the connection, that opens up a lot of possibilities. One that comes to mind is using the embedded processor to emulate a modem and PPP connection... there's that pesky cost thing of course (I'm not sure what level of hardware would be necessary), but if a BBA was made that worked with modem games, it would probably have way more sales potential than a straight BBA clone. I guess it's just a matter of being able to minimize costs...

		Service Games	Oct 4, 2001
		BS, ppoe is unnesasary, get a freaking router so your PC and DC can be hooked up to it at the same time.

Cynnamin

Oct 4, 2001

Quote: from Service Games on 3:34 pm on Oct. 4, 2001

BS, ppoe is unnesasary, get a freaking router so your PC and DC can be hooked up to it at the same time.

I have two words for you.

BLOW ME

		Shaneus	Oct 5, 2001
		BTW Broadband adapter... how do u hook it up? CAT-5, cable... whats the go? And why wouldnt a game support it... wouldnt that game utilize the full bandwidth? any more questions by me? could i get more annoying?

MasterAkumaMatata

Oct 5, 2001

Quote: from Cynnamin on 1:57 am on Oct. 5, 2001

Quote: from Service Games on 3:34 pm on Oct. 4, 2001

BS, ppoe is unnesasary, get a freaking router so your PC and DC can be hooked up to it at the same time.

I have two words for you.

BLOW ME

I believe SUCK

is the more proper term to use than BLOW in this case.

		Cynnamin	Oct 5, 2001
		No, actually a little warm air in just the right place at just the right time does wonders You should try it sometime

		Artemio Urbina	Oct 5, 2001
		Router......?!?!?! Mmhh buy the pieces to build a 486 machine with a network card.. even no monitor.. (I built one this week for 10 USD) And install Linux on it.. use it as a router.... better and cheaper...