Are you a lucky person? I for one think I am. An incurable ass-disease and spotty beard growth aside, I’ve had a lot of luck in my life. Not being born a dung beetle with a particular palate, a tramplable snake in Trav’s backyard or a redhead in the Harry Potter universe is something I’ll always cherish. My luck goes so far that when I acquired all my nearly two dozen home consoles, it always came down to one of four simple scenarios:

Someone gifted me a new console, it worked fine
Someone gifted me a used console, it worked fine
I bought a new console, it worked fine
I bought a used console and you guessed it: it worked fine.

You can imagine how cocky I was when I set my sights on a new endeavor: buy a used SEGA Dreamcast and add it to my collection.

What could go wrong?

eBay prices turned me off immediately, so I went to their German Craigslist clone “eBay Kleinanzeigen” where you can buy stuff for cheap and without needing to pay fees. The only downside is that you have to talk to people. But as I’ve established already, I am a lucky man and I’ve never had serious trouble getting the stuff I wanted for a price that didn’t cut me own throat.

I saved the search request so the site would alert me via email whenever anything new Dreamcast related popped up. After getting a feel for the prices and availabilities of Dreamcasts and Dreamcast games for a month or two, I was ready to pounce. I got serious.

Nightmare begins

The first guy I contacted sold a Dreamcast without games, but had some Sega Saturn and Mega Drive games in the same lot. I offered 300 € (essentially $300), but he wanted a few grand. Huh.

That same day, someone posted for sale three Dreamcasts plus some games for 150 €, but he wrote that only one of the consoles worked and he hadn’t tested the others. The working console was all-digital. I hesitated. Should I really buy three consoles for 50 bucks each and try to sell the ones I don’t need? What’s all this all-digital fuss about? Maybe I’ll wait to see if something happens, like they drop the price or just contact me directly and offer it to me for free.

Instead, what happened was that the deal disappeared. Curious about the mystifying all-digital thing, I did some research. Turns out, those chips have risen in price considerably and 150 eurobucks would have covered that single console and then some. Goddamnit.

The next Dreamcast that popped up was 25 €, but my immediate reaction was “eww, it doesn’t come with cables…”. The listing vanished before my eww face became my regular slightly less ewwy face again. In other words, fast. I can change my expression rather quickly. Now, I was dumbfounded.

At this point, I faced a sad truth: If I ever wanted to up my games (i.e., add a Dreamcast to my life), then I needed to up my game. I needed to be ready to use the dreaded “direct buy” function the site offered, including marginal fees (eww face re-engaged). And I needed a shoulder to cry on, so from roughly this point onward I reported back to Trav whenever I met a new milestone in my Dreamcast journey. And cry I did, hence him telling me to write down my story for the world to share in my dreaded, nightmare experience in securing a Dreamcast.

I tightened my belt, put on my glasses as to prevent blurred vision, put a pre-wetted toothpick in my mouth, and through a grimace of sheer dedication and gritted teeth, mumbled “the game is afoot.”

Another Dreamcast listing popped up. Cables, two controllers, no sun fading, working condition, a handful of games. 90 bucks you say? Bring it on! Without hesitation I clicked the direct buy button, put in my payment info and leaned back in grim satisfaction. No one could take this one from me.

Then the seller took this one from me.

He messaged me with some lame excuse about how he messed up the pricing and would now initiate a refund. No. No! How could he do that to me? More bad luck. This was wrong, I’m the lucky man! (With the incurably bad pooper).

He posted the same listing again, this time for 160 bucks. I told him politely that I thought this was somewhat brazen, but I nevertheless wished him a nice week. Seriously, as much as Trav would wish I had yelled “Have a nice f*****g week you goat f****r.”, I was unbearably polite. This triggered him hard and he sent me screenshots of a super overprized listing on Amazon of all places and an eBay listing of a Japanese Dreamcast for 99 € that had been online for ages. Gee, thanks. Somehow, he couldn’t sell the console for the new price and, to my salty glee, he has since bumped the price down to 145 € and still hasn’t sold it three weeks later. Take that, jerk.

Nobody needs a console to play games

After weeks of anxiously checking my emails for an update on Dreamcast listings, I got weary and decided to satiate my spending urges by buying a few games. Of course I did, who needs a console after all? Virtua Tennis, Sonic Adventure, Hydro Thunder, Metropolis Street Racer and super rare concealed jewel ChuChu Rocket joined my shelves as the first sign I would be a Dreamcast owner in the future. Maybe.

Slight interjection: have you ever held a Dreamcast game case and thought “jeesh, these suck”? Have you ever thought “oof, why are PlayStation 1 game cases so fragile”?

Well, you don’t know what hell is.

In the PAL regions, SEGA sold all their DC games in big cases that house two discs and have two covers, front and back. The front cover is hard to open and you’ll be hard pressed to find a case with all its latches intact. Each time you open them, you feel like handling your granny’s good china with sledgehammers as hands whilst being awfully aware of her presence in the next room.

*Chaotic design attracts chaotic entities.*

The back cover is easier to open, but it houses the back inlay which has a perforated edge meant to fold at a 90-degree angle, like a movie ticket teasing you to prematurely void it.

Of the 31 games I eventually ordered, four or five cases were not broken. The only eBay listing for unbroken, empty PAL game cases I could find had them at 8 bucks a pop and the only case shown in the images had a crack right down the middle of the front cover. Let’s just abandon any hope for a neat collection at this point. (eww face)

Anyway, back to the intricacies of the overwhelming first world problems some middle-aged white guy is having on the internet. Someone has to tell his story!

The next week was spent searching for and buying games, accessories and a ton more games. The whole situation began to look dire. I had already spent an absurd amount of money, but hadn’t come any closer to the original goal: buy a Dreamcast.

A familiar face rises from the crowd

One day, as I was frantically pacing up and down my apartment waiting for that one ideal listing to materialize, I absentmindedly scrolled through the last few pages of search results and found this bundle:

*Grimy PS2 Thrustmaster, broken SNES controller and also some Dreamcast stuff.*

I had seen this listing before. Actually, I had seen this listing a dozen times before. It was always there for 140 bucks, but the seller said they couldn’t test the console because that white VGA adapter box was broken and they didn’t have a CRT anymore. I wasn’t sure what all that stuff was worth. But upon closer examination, I realized they sold the Japanese version of Power Stone 2 in that lot which by itself is worth 45 €. So, if I could haggle the seller down to maybe 120 € and sell that game, I would have all that other stuff left for 75 bucks. Seeing this picture, Trav pricked up his ears and expressed interest in that light gun, asking me to fly it over on a plane. I wouldn’t be the first guy arrested for smuggling a weapon on a plane, but certainly the first with a pluggable one!

I took heart and contacted the seller. She was very slow to respond, but also very nice. I asked for her PayPal info and while she scrambled in the most unscrambly way to get them to me, I went on a small shopping spree. I figured I would take the chance presented by that extremely yellow (yellowed really isn’t the right word here) console to finally learn some modding skills. After some short deliberation with my partner in crime (“which case do you like, black or purple? You like black? I like purple. I’ma buy purple, Trav. Thanks honey”), my shopping cart filled with a custom case, a metallic decal for the top, an HDMI adapter and a wireless controller adapter that also acts as a memory card. I was ready. (normal face).

*Which one would you have chosen? Dead wrong. It’s the other one.*

Two days later, the seller answered, telling me postage would probably be 5 €, but she wasn’t sure. 5 bucks to send a huge ass steering wheel, a bunch of games, a light gun, four controllers, a console, a VGA adapter and a forest of cables cross country? Sure. Maybe not. I told her I’d happily pay for the real cost, so she looked it up and we made a new price that didn’t make me feel dirty.

I had the seller’s payment info, sent over all the buckeroos and eagerly awaited the arrival of my first ever Dreamcast.

Or did I?

Twice is twice the fun

Although swimming in joy for the arrival of my long awaited Dreamcast come-true, I still had not yet disabled the search request. I get a notification telling me someone found a Dreamcast in their basement and sold it untested and without cables for 35 €! Well, untested you say? Being a proud Dreamcast owner myself (in the most ethereal way possible), I jumped at the possibility to (worst case scenario) have some very cheap spare parts for my main console or (best case scenario) own two working Dreamcasts! One of which I could mod while keeping the other one stock. Genius!

One man’s trash… Did you know that PAL region Dreamcasts had a blue logo instead of the red one you’re used to because German book publisher Tivola has that exact same swirl in their logo? Look it up, we really are the ones pissing in everyone’s cereal!

My trained finger hit the direct buy button so lightning fast that my cat mistook it for prey and attacked me on the spot. Soon, the pain wore off and the console was bought. The seller got an automatic message from eBay Kleinanzeigen telling them that they had made the sale, provided my address, and notified them they’d get their money as soon as me, the buyer, confirmed getting the item in the mail.

Hours went by.

I was sure of victory.

Time dragged on.

I was steadfast.

Well, if you’ve seen me before, maybe not steadfast in the literal sense.

Half a day later, the seller contacted me. “Send over your address and I’ll tell you where to wire the money…”. Uh-hum, sir, that’s not how this works. Very politely, I explained to him that I had used the direct buy function that he had manually enabled on his listing with his own cat tempting trigger finger and that the money was already at eBay’s fiduciary. Figuring it couldn’t hurt, I did send him my address again and waited for his most certainly very understanding response.

“I don't know who you paid, buy I ain't doin' anything with ebay!”

Huh.

Okay, this is a daft one. I took a deep breath, flexed my diplomatic muscles and tried to tell him he must have deposited his payment info since the direct buy function wouldn’t, uh, function otherwise. After some quick research I knew there was no way he could scam me out of my money, as the buyer is always in total control of when and if the money will be paid to the seller. So, I told him we could just send the money via PayPal if he’d prefer that.

*In the meantime, Trav asked me what games I’d like to try first once the console arrived. His answer made more sense when the latest Tales of the Lesser Medium released.*

Next day: “There’s nothing deposited on Kleinanzeigen….” The elusive four-dotted ellipsis!? What is this, crazy country?! Answer my question, you buffoon!

Another failed try. It seems people really don’t want my money. I go with, “Hey buddy, we can always do this via PayPal if you’re more comfortable with that. Please send me your info.”

“I’ll send you my bank info… don’t have PayPal…”

Gee, thanks!

Literal hours went by, then finally he hit me up with his bank info. Praise the sun! I swiftly sent my money and rolled my eyes at his “I send out the package the moment the money arrives.” Right.

Three days go by, then he tells me he’ll send the box the next day. Two days later he tells me he just sent the box. Another two days later, the box arrives. Praise. The fucking. Sun.

Ten days for a 35 € transaction and a box to be sent from 24 miles away in the same country. If I wasn’t such a lazy bum, I would have driven over there and broken his knee caps or at least tangentially pissed on his garden gnomes! This asshole seems like the kind of person who owns garden gnomes.

Anywho... packages kept rolling in and soon I was buried in Dreamcast stuff. The first part of my unexpectedly rocky journey was over and this was my yield:

Yes, I know Kaico is the Nestlé of retro gaming cables, but they were the only ones selling the delicious fountain water. Pictured are the 120 € lot with the yellow Dreamcast, the replacement shell and all the games I picked up in that roughly two-week span.

Fixing my Dreams

As always, my first course of action when I get sent used stuff is to wipe it thoroughly with rubbing alcohol. You never know what those perverts did to it. And boy oh boy, there was icky grime on some of these items. That Thrustmaster felt like someone had taken that name literal. After cleaning it for ages, it now only feels like a baby drooled on it for a week straight, so that’s a plus. The SNES controller had a cracked shell and was overall a teensy bit gunky.

*Let’s just hope this is 25-year old Cheetos dust. Wait, did we even have Cheetos over here 25 years ago?!*

I got a neat new shell for that little bugger and rehomed its innards. I needed to file away some plastic to get the cord through the shell, but other than that it’s a perfect fit and feels very good to play. Success!

A good cleaning with soapy water and a toothbrush never fails to make someone look more presentable. Sometimes the best course of action is to just get rid of your outer shell and get a new one instead.

After bolstering my ego with that “repair”, I went to see what else needed to be done to my new kindergarten of gaming things.

I connected the console from the 120 € lot and was ecstatic to see it turn on! It worked. Then I realized the disc drive didn’t. Damnit.

I tested all the controllers and accessories and they worked like a charm. As per contract for my therapy sessions, I tied a neat package and sent the light gun over to the states for Trav to enjoy. Will we see an unpacking video in the near future? Only time will tell.

The 35 € console did read discs, but would reset back to the menu after a few minutes and then refuse to restart the game.

My focus now was on the two consoles and that VGA adapter that I knew didn’t work. I tried the adapter, it indeed wouldn’t turn on and I figured I should just toss it. Who cares about VGA anyway? Well, people do apparently. 90 € for one of these! What the hell! Suddenly the whole lot paid for itself if I could just get this thing running!

*I am never gonna financially recover from this. Also, turns out, the Dreamcast can’t play Playstation 5 or Nintendo Switch games. “Dream” my ass. My incurable little ass.*

Now, bare with me dear reader. To spoil the whole thing right from the get-go: I didn’t fix it yet. It has like 20 capacitors that want to be replaced and my soldering skills are still on the level of “I can make solder go hot and bubbly.” Which is a skill I can also accomplish by accident so I can only improve. But it would have been quite the great comeback story, right? Right?

However, I knew fixing the consoles would take some basic soldering, so I finally invested in a soldering station. And flux. And wires. Tin. Magnifying glass with light. Capacitors. Battery holders. Batteries. Tabbed batteries. Screw drivers. A rubber mat. Diodes. IPA. Not that kind of IPA. Silly you. A smoke extractor. Silicone grease. And so much more.

People say you should start with a cheap soldering iron and take your first steps on some broken electronics that don’t need to survive. Fuck people!

My built-in hubris drove me to test all that equipment on a pair of Game Boy games and after replacing the batteries on those I went straight for the first Dreamcast’s battery. The plan was clear: remove the rechargeable battery, put in a battery holder for a non-rechargeable battery, cut the wire next to it and put in a diode to stop any current from reaching the battery. This way, the battery would last for at least 10 years and be dirt cheap and easy to replace.

I watched a video on YouTube that showed the whole process in real time: 3:30 minutes. I had watched countless hours of dudes and dudettes fixing electronics. I knew the pitfalls. I knew what had to be done. All that was left was for my hands to translate all that I had learned into God’s work.

Well, let’s cut this short and show you how it looked two hours later:

The… well… that component on the left, whatever it is – I certainly don’t need to know – was on the wrong side when I opened the console up. I desoldered it, bent the wire, put it in on the other side so I’d have room for the diode and soldered it back into place. Since my flux hadn’t yet arrived and my skills were abysmal at best, it took ages and many tries to get it to stick.

The diode gave me even more trouble: while connecting the two wires together wasn’t really hard, the other end wouldn’t form a neat solder blob. Instead, I spent too much time on it and burnt the contact. I resorted to scratching open the adjacent trace, bending the diode’s wire over to it and soldered it in place. Looks ugly, but it’s solid. I’m glad I never have to touch that one again. Well, for now.

A few days later, I did the same thing to the other Dreamcast. In just under 10 minutes, beautiful shiny solder blobs. Hooray for practice!

With that out of the way, I needed to determine which console would get what treatment. My original plan was to keep the 35 € Dreamcast stock, replacing the disc drive with the other console’s if need be. Opening it, however, I saw that someone had been in there! They were gone now, thankfully. And while they used packaging tape to stick some wires to the disc drive, they failed to clean the fan that looked like it had just been born in the mud pits of Isengard.

I cleaned out all the gunk, hard cleaned the pins that connect the motherboard to the PSU, greased up all moving parts on the disc drive and lid, but the fan kept failing and resetting the console. At least, I think that’s what was happening.

My plan for the other, yellow console was set for weeks: replace disc drive with a GDEmu that would allow for original games to be played from an SD card. Replace PSU with DreamPSU, a power unit that doesn’t generate much heat unlike the original one would with a GDEmu installed. Then, replace stock fan with a Noctua fan, which should lower the overall noise level from starting fighter jet to soft summer breeze. Lastly, replace shell.

However, upon closer examination I found it sported a half-metal, half-plastic fan casing. That indicated that the whole unit is built a tad bit differently and that replacing the fan would be very finicky and not really worth it. As this one worked fine, I resorted to, instead, putting the Noctua fan in the disc model. You follow?

This resulted in the disc model a) finally working and b) being whisper quiet. Besides the ear raping disc drive noises that is. First one fixed!

A history of violet

The other console, henceforth dubbed my purple heart (maybe not) was due for a good clean and then a grand gutting.

I removed both the GD-ROM drive and the original PSU, storing both away for later use. Assembling all the parts in a new shell is really easy with a Dreamcast as that little cutie is built very user friendly. I didn’t run into any problems putting in the newly bought components and before fastening the last screws, I tested it. I was so happy when it just booted up as if nothing had ever happened to it! And then I was gutted when I found that the GDEmu menu wouldn’t load, rendering the console useless. (eww face). Back to the drawing board, I researched dozens of possible issues, including wrong firmware, broken SD cards and stupidity. Of course, being me, the latter was the culprit. In a feeble attempt at reconciling with my beautiful violet console, I removed the GDEmu, did nothing to it and put it back in place. Lo and behold, it worked! I must have messed up sticking one PCB on top of the other. I always sucked at LEGO.

That’s how it looks with new components. The black PCB is the GDEmu, the violet plastic on top makes it easier to insert an SD card when the console is assembled. The white chip on the left is the DreamPSU which isn’t wholly necessary, but doesn’t hurt either. Both are Chinese clone PCBs as the original developers have pretty much given up meeting the overwhelming demand for these things and made the plans publically available.

*Of course I photograph my consoles on the kitchen worktop, where else?*

With the most important part now working, the only thing left was reassembling the console. When everything was back together, I noticed the power button would get stuck after pressing it. Oh no. Fuck.

Some forum diving later, I was enlightened. There are two manufacturers for these custom shells: one puts the SEGA logo and a decal on the console and the other one sucks. Guess what I bought. My solution was simple: just use the buttons from the yellow case and call it a day. I think it worked out fine, what do you think?

*Disc model on the left, all-digital GDEmu model on the right. I glued the metal decal (or jewel as some call it) to the case with some tiny drops of superglue.*

And with that, my story is finally over!

Oh come on, you didn’t believe that, did you?!

Owning a GDEmu comes with its own set of problems: first of all, you need games to put on it. Oh yeah, that’s all the problems. But can I make it more problematic? Of course I can!

In a wonderful state of incurable-ass-medicine-induced-mind-fog, I visited my favorite ROM website and began looking for Dreamcast games. The site stated “CDI files will work with emulators and a real Dreamcast console. GDI files can only be used with emulators.” Emulators? Pfshh, I don’t use emulators, I use the real deal! Of course, the chip I want to run them on emulates being a disc drive, but that can’t possibly be what they mean with this, right? Why bother spending half a minute on googling what file format the GDEmu needs if I can just spend half a day downloading games instead?

So I did just that, downloading CDI versions of 114 games. Over 50 GB, each file needing a little “attaboy” from me as my browser alerted me tirelessly that those websites aren’t to be trusted. Each and every single time. And to be fair, I don’t trust them but I need them. You don’t really trust your drug dealer, you just hope today’s not the day, ya know?

When I was done the next day, I looked down at my creation with pride. This would be my magnum opus. My grand gift to humanity. Mind-ass-fog is a weird fella.

I booted up a program that would allow me to put all those games on an SD card without having to manually fiddle with the admittedly awful GDEmu file format system. It told me it was very happy to see me and that it would gladly accept all the GDI files I could throw at it. Cool. Wait, what? Gee Dee I? Not Cee Dee I? FUCK!

Two days later, I was done redownloading all those games plus a few more that I found by watching Metal Jesus and friends on the second screen.

I downloaded GD MENU Card Manager in a successful attempt to make the whole process even easier. PSA: this program will make it so that the GDEmu menu will display instantly on your modded console instead of taking 5 minutes to load when you have too many games on your SD card. It took half a day for the program to haul over all the games and make them look pretty, but it worked like a charm and now I’m happy as can be. Waist up.

Both consoles now reside tucked neatly between my PS5 and SNES and are ready to go whenever I need them. With the Brooks Wireless Adapter I’m able to use a wireless controller, a modern wired keyboard or even an 8BitDo wireless arcade stick to play my games. It ain’t pretty, but it knows its way around a Dreamcast ifyouknowwhatImean.

The HDMI adapter from the company which shall not be named conjures up a crisp beautiful image.

Both consoles are loud in their own way, one churning air like its gargling gravel and the other grinding on discs like a small-town DJ on his first gig.

I love my new console buddies and look forward to beating the hell out of the brilliant library. My buddy BrotherBodhi, famous artist behind Yardy the veiny aardvark, recently made me aware of yet another source of dozens of Dreamcast games in the form of the Atomiswave arcade ports, adding even more value to the systems.

The future is bright.

I’m a lucky man.

I Had a Dream, and I Wanted To Cast It