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Dreamcast ™ wrote:
WHERE TO BUY THE PARTS:
If I'm not mistaken, all of these parts can be bought at Radioshack. Nikon, what parts do you have already? They can't be bought at Radio Shack. Maybe someone will get lucky and find the capacitor at one near them. However Radio Shack is ceasing to stock such items. I went into one store, and they barely had any parts at all. Another didn't have the right capacitors or resistors. I have been to 3 radio shacks, and then finally went to Fry's Electronics. They didn't even have it. All I have is a .47 MFD 50V electrolytic capacitor, cost me 50 cents, thought i would try it. I have a 330 ohm resistor. If you, or anyone else has direct links to an online shop with the specific part so I can just click and buy, that would be great. I have found some leads at a few sites however there are like 12 different kinds of capacitors. So I could really use an exact link to a page with the specific capacitor, one that someone knows will work. (btw, i'm diggin this cable method, hope to try it out soon as I get what I need) |
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| _________________ Sega AM2 presents Waves of Grain - "Powerslide your way through the fields to deliver the wheat crop!" |
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Nikon, you have the capacitor...  Why are you still looking?
.47 MFD 50V Electrolytic is exactly what the plans call for. If the 50V part is throwing you off, that's just what the capacitor supports up to before it blows. 330 ohms is fine for the resistor. That's what I used in my dual port model as well as "CC style" one. All you need in addition to that is a telephone cord and a 9V snap connector. (which I'm pretty sure every RadioShack has.) - Dreamcast ™ |
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Well, the original guide called for a 100v capacitor. I have all the parts needed, cept I have a 330 ohm resistor(1/2 watt 5% tolerance), and a .47 MFD 50v Electrolytic Capacitor.
I have been unable to get it to work. So using common logic, and since I am not an electrician or have any background in this kind of stuff. I assumed that the problem was the capacitor. Just now I stripped a phone cord, and I tried your new single cable based method with the items I have on hand. I built it exactly to the diagram you have listed above, and twisted the wires together and taped them to secure them. I double checked and everything is pressing against each other just fine. I pop in quake 3, and I test it out. It still gives me a dial tone error. So I then try out PlanetWeb just to be sure the data is flowing. Sure enough planetweb connects just fine. So I try Quake 3 again and it still doesn't work. Could it be the phone cord I am using? I am using a normal phone cord. One that would be included with the DC or a standard telephone for instance. When I stripped it, there were only 2 wires instead of 4. Just the Red and Green. Anyways, I'm not sure what else to do at this stage. Short of someone else sending me a line simulator that already works, so I can see if there is a compatablity issue with the modem I am using...or what. If you have any extra tips on how to troubleshoot this let me know. I'm stumped  |
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| _________________ Sega AM2 presents Waves of Grain - "Powerslide your way through the fields to deliver the wheat crop!" |
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nikon ur not stupid . do u still have to have the bind dial on if u are useing the simulater. or mabe its a power problem . would there be any other way to get power to the line simulator other than by battery . there has to be another way to power it by the pc's power but . i could be wrong tho i know the usb ports dont suply enuff power | |||
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Psss... Quake III still has to have a live tone from a phone outlet. That's why I built the switch into my dual port one with a line to my phone jack. That way, instead of swapping wires, all you do is flick a switch to go between lines. That's why I call this an "inducter" and not a "simulator." All it's doing is inducing a current through the line. A simulator actually generates the 60 HZ hum you hear.
You have to do the line swap trick. You have to have your DC plugged into a phone outlet, then when it's dialing, after it hits 8, remove it from the live line and plug in the line with the inducter going between PC and DC and then make the PC pickup. It sucks, I know, but don't worry. I'm working on a cheap alternative to the expensive REAL simulators. It actually won't be all that difficult. I'll have the schematics for that once I get around to getting all of the parts I need. I think for this project, I may manufacture them and sell them to make it easier. And it's also good that you only had two wires. The yellow and black ones are for a secondary line. Having only two makes it easier to worth with. - Dreamcast ™ |
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Dreamcast ™ wrote:
Psss... Quake III still has to have a live tone from a phone outlet. That's why I built the switch into my dual port one with a line to my phone jack. That way, instead of swapping wires, all you do is flick a switch to go between lines. That's why I call this an "inducter" and not a "simulator." All it's doing is inducing a current through the line. A simulator actually generates the 60 HZ hum you hear.
You have to do the line swap trick. You have to have your DC plugged into a phone outlet, then when it's dialing, after it hits 8, remove it from the live line and plug in the line with the inducter going between PC and DC and then make the PC pickup. It sucks, I know, but don't worry. I'm working on a cheap alternative to the expensive REAL simulators. It actually won't be all that difficult. I'll have the schematics for that once I get around to getting all of the parts I need. I think for this project, I may manufacture them and sell them to make it easier. And it's also good that you only had two wires. The yellow and black ones are for a secondary line. Having only two makes it easier to worth with. - Dreamcast ™ Hmmm Yea I have done the swap trick before and know how to do that of course. I thought the line voltage inducer was supposed to solve that. What does the original inducer or your inducer (they do the same thing right?), what do they actually do? All this time I thought the line voltage thing was supposed to eliminate the need to do the swap trick. Ok good about the two wires. At first I thought I was screwed hehe :] |
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| _________________ Sega AM2 presents Waves of Grain - "Powerslide your way through the fields to deliver the wheat crop!" |
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Bascially, software modems consist of nothing by ICs and transistors. They may have a small inductor but nothing capable of putting data across a telephone line like their hardware modem bretheren. Software modems rely heavily on the 12V across the phone line provided by the telephone company. The purpose of little device is to simulate a portion of the voltage moving across the line. Voltage is also known as an EMF or electro motive force, with motive being the key word here. The EMF helps move the data through the conductor along with the current.
What is commonly referred to as a "Line Simulator" is a device that not only supplies the 12V (dropped to after pickup) but is also responsible for generating the 90V ? (I think) ring and the 60 cycle "tone" you hear through an array of oscillators. Unfortunately, this device does not simulate anything. It just loops current through the line. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, there is nice solution to this delimma. You can buy one of these: Double Pole - Double Throw Hobby Switch from RadioShack. This is another part I'm sure all of them have. It may seem a little Frankenstein-ish, but serves its purpose well, and I really recommend this over the sub micro DPDT switches I used in my project. You can just tell by the name "sub micro" that they were a pain in the ass to solder 6 wires each to. I'll post a schematic later if anyone is interested in using the switch instead of pulling cables and all of that. - Dreamcast ™ Posted Wed Jul 06, 2005 12:46 am: Also, now that your inductor is up and running, if you have a minute, see what happens when you try to connect with Maximum Pool, StarLancer, or 4X4 Evo. It does that connection drop every time. I'm really at a loss for what it could be. I've tried everything, even adjusting the ratings of the components thinking maybe during the connection, there was a tremendous pull from the modem that dropped the voltage so low that it lost its connection. Actually, I never watched the readings on my DMM. I think I'll go give that a try and see what is going on. I've heard someone say they've connected with Linux which leads me to believe it's the Window's dialer program, so maybe we should look into finding another app that emulates the dial in server's functionality, but maybe in a way that won't drop the connection. I'll let you know what happens as soon as I get more information. - Dreamcast ™ Last edited by Dreamcast â„¢ on Wed Jul 06, 2005 12:48 am; edited 1 time in total |
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Ok so, the info at the bottom of the page here:
http://consolevision.com/members/mterlouw/connect.htm Is the same thing as the new single cable method you showed earlier in this thread? And also, Im still a bit confused as to what this actually is designed to solve. Is this for people who can't get the dreamcast connected via PC-DC even with the swap trick? Cause if it doesn't add the dial-tone, why build the inducer? Also the switch you linked to, is that for just being able to do the swap trick faster? (flicking a switch rather than, swapping cables) Or is that a stand alone solution for the dial tone issue. |
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| _________________ Sega AM2 presents Waves of Grain - "Powerslide your way through the fields to deliver the wheat crop!" |
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You have to build it because software modems can't produce a current through the line. No current = no data movement. Think of current as one of those people mover things you see at the airport sometimes. For the example, the people mover will represent the current. If you turn the people mover off, the people stop moving. Same cause/effect for real current inside of a wire and through an EMF. The EMF (the battery) is the pressure that causes the current to move.
Without the battery, there would be no current, and thus, nothing to move the data through the conductor. Yes, the switch is just a conveinience. (I also added some stuff to my last post) |
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So, if I am getting things connected, and data flowing with Q3 and Web browsing, without any line voltage inducer, then there is no need for me to be using one correct?
Meaning the people that need an inducer are those with software modems in their DC or their PC that they are trying to send data through. I currently am able to get Q3 to connect without using any inducer at all. Still have to line swap of course. I have an external USB 56k modem on the PC. |
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| _________________ Sega AM2 presents Waves of Grain - "Powerslide your way through the fields to deliver the wheat crop!" |
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Correct. The only way to eliminate the need for the line swap technique is to purchase a line "simulator." You have to make sure it has a tone generator though.
Don't worry. Once I can get my hands on an oscilliscope again and determine the waveform coming out of the phone line, I can assemble a box to do just that. - Dreamcast ™ Posted Wed Jul 06, 2005 1:03 am: Actually, an idea that I've been toying with for quite some time now is recording the tone and then wiring my line out directly into the modem to see what happens. It would be hysterical if it works. Posted Wed Jul 06, 2005 1:05 am: And sorry that I didn't catch this earlier and help you out of all of the headache this has caused. |
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Ok. Now everything is clear to me now. All of this research is really paying off. And I appreciate you sticking with this. As of yet nobody has been able to bring such technical information to the table on this besides you. So all of this going over things and such is really helping.
SOOOOOOOOOOOOO... I have tried starlancer, 4x4 evo....etc etc etc many many times. Both right now with the line inducer and without the inducer in the past. I have not been able to connect with any of them. I can get Q3 to connect as long as I set the DNS to 0.0.0.0 Also in the process found some wacky trick to create an "always online" connection, with quake 3. It is actually really really really usefull. But it requires manual server inputs only. Here is how to do it: setup the Dreamcast to have the command console on at all times, and have an IP:PORT already in memory(meaning you can press UP on the keyboard and it will fill in, meaning you entered in previously). Ok now exit out and go to internet connect. Then do the whole swap trick thing, connect...etc etc. After you have click "apply" on the PC to turn on the dialup server, press F12 on the DC keyboard to bring up the command console. press UP on the keyboard to have to pull your last entry, the IP and port of a running Q3 server. Wait until it says Connected! and shows the dreamcasts IP. Then very fast right after it shows the IP, HIT ENTER on the keyboard. You will connect to the game server. Now you can hit Exit and it will send you back to the Q3 main menu. BUT........... your still connected. Really strange. So basically you could go to a server and play, then head back to some splitscreen multiplayer, then back online to the server if you wanted to. I think its actually pretty usefull. Especially if you were playing over a LAN environment. If you needed to go back to the main menu for some strange reason you wouldn't lose your active connection. I can get F355 Challenge to connect, and play online, however I am unable to get it to retrieve the final replay. It freezes and tells the other player I have retired from the race. The qualifying races worked fine though. I am going to try and get that DNS issue resolved so Q3 can reach the master list. What really sucks is all the modems I currently have are not "real" modems. They are winmodems. So to even test linux I have to buy yet another modem. We need to get some verification to see if anyone has ever gotten Starlancer to connect to the master list via Linux...or even windows for that matter. I thought I saw someone reference it here somewhere. Posted Wed Jul 06, 2005 2:24 am: Dreamcast ™ wrote:
And sorry that I didn't catch this earlier and help you out of all of the headache this has caused. Ehh don't worry about it.  Atleast we got it all sorted out now, and are moving onto the next step.
The main goal that is driving me right now is to get Starlancer, PBA Bowling and The Next Tetris Online to connect so I can log packets and get this gamespy stuff sorted out. What I am going to do now is get a copy of PBA Bowling 2001 for the PC off of segadreamcaster. Since that game is literally offline for the PC right now, and is cross platform compatible. Using it should be no different than the DC version. So I will use this to test stuff. I'm also going to try and talk my friend into buying up some more IP's and setting up a DNS server so I can easily redirect the games for testing purposes. I would try and do codebreaker, but both tetris and pba both connect to 4 or 5 different addresses :/ |
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| _________________ Sega AM2 presents Waves of Grain - "Powerslide your way through the fields to deliver the wheat crop!" |
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The research you guys are doing is well apriciated!
My question: If you can do the swapping trick then a line simulator isn't needed anymore? If so, I'm gonna hook up my Dreamcast downstairs again and try it over there with my laptop. I already tried it before, but I always left Winroute active. But I understand I have to switch the line after 8 secs and then put it into my laptop and then start Winroute? Also, I run both Gentoo Linux and Windows XP. But as for many modems, my modem is a freaking winmodem and I can't get mine to work under Linux. Although I've found some people that got it to work, but it aint working out for me. |
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| _________________ Htbaa http://www.pcc-online.net |
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So here are the games that can connect through the PC/DC dial up server:
PSO Quake III (But requires that DNS be set to 0.0.0.0) F355 (But it locks up after race) And then the browser: Planet Web / Sega Swirl (Pretty sure this one can) Considering how many other games there are online, this is pretty pathetic that only PSO and the browser work 100%. For all the work that's involved in getting the PC-DC dial up server configured, there really isn't much in way of a reward for your efforts. The thing that gets me is that some connect, and some drop the connection before it can even connect. Searching through my modem logs, it looks like it drops right after the modem sends the ATA<cr> command. The ATA command initializes the voice function of the modem. The last call the PC puts out to the DC before it goes into full auto is "ATA." Turn verbose messages on and dial in with Planet Web to see what I mean. My absolute best guess now is that for some reason, all of the games hosted on gamespy servers are all using some proprietary or otherwise driver source for connecting and can't connect over a voice enabled line. I think it's the "ATA<cr>" line that's killing the connection. It's the last thing the PC puts out. Check the modem log files right after it reject the connection. I'm trying every possible command combination I can come up with that would have any rhyme or reason to it, but am still at a loss. As for the Quake III, the 0.0.0.0 explains the missing master list, but doesn't explain why it's the only DNS setting that won't lock up when logging in. Good luck with that one Nikon. Hopefully you can get that one squared away. Remember, anyone reading this who knows anyone who has gotten the PC-DC dial up server to work with any of the other games not listed above, please post here and give us their contact information. Helping us only aids us in returning the favor in big ways. 
Posted Wed Jul 06, 2005 4:52 am: NIKON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I DID IT!!! BY GOD I FINALLY DID SOMETHING, AND DO SOMETHING I DID! The words "Connection Complete" in Maximum Pool have never looked sweeter. Oh man, you have no idea how happy I am. I'll explain everything later. I have a big surprise in store for everyone running PC/DC servers. Yours truely, Dreamcast ™ |
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Dreamcast ™ wrote:
NIKON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I DID IT!!! BY GOD I FINALLY DID SOMETHING, AND DID SOMETHING I DO! The words "Connection Complete" in Maximum Pool have never looked sweeter. Oh man, you have no idea how happy I am. I'll explain everything later. I have a big surprise in store for everyone running PC/DC servers. Yours truely, Dreamcast ™ !!!!!!!!!!! OMFG..........dude. I just incorrectly input my password like 3 times trying to sign in. What did you do?! 
Did you try starlancer or other games yet? Details!!! |
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| _________________ Sega AM2 presents Waves of Grain - "Powerslide your way through the fields to deliver the wheat crop!" |
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