Development programs?

[rouken]

I got a doubt this week about how to develop programs for Dreamcast (not I will program someday, but just for my curiosity...). I thought to myself "if Dreamcast's programming runs under a Windows system, so it's easy to do a program in PC under Windows and convert it to Dreamcast". But, I got other thing in mind: The Dreamcast Development Kit, a kind of PC-Dreamcast hybrid specific to develop games (and other programs) to Dreamcast.

So... There's the question: If someone want to create some kind of program/game/etc to Dreamcast, the need of the Development Kit is imperative, or you can use some kind of development tool for PC?

Another question is: If a Development Kit is imperative to create such thing, what is the average price of a Dreamcast Dev. Kit? If you find one, of course...

To SWAT: Do you program the DreamShell with the help of this development kit? If yes, can you post one pic of your Dev. Kit?

[uglybuddy6]

I think the Dev kits where only used by Sega and other company that produced legitimate games, must homebrew is created on a computer with the help of a development library like KallistiOS. The dev kits to my understanding where only a step in the middle between a PC and a Dreamcast cause most if not all the code for the game was produced on a PC. Some body please correct me if i am wrong.

[superdefault]

go for KallistiOS!
it is quite easy to setup on windows (cygwin).
there is a Dreamshell SDK for building modules/cmd/.. for dreamshell.

and SHOULD be VERY easy to setup on OS X. <-- if you find a good Tutorial on how to get everyhting running under OS X pls tell me. should be very easy, however i did not get it done and chose bootcamp/windows/cygwin.

[rouken]

To uglybuddy6: The Dev.Box is the official development tool, but some guys got some unities to their personal collections. You can find some collectors posting pics in forums or videos in YouTube showing their Dev.Boxes.

superdefault: The KallistiOS looks the only cheap way to someone create games/homebrews for Dreamcast, once the Dev.Kit is very difficult to find and very expensive to pay!! I made a quick research on Google about the KallistiOS, and I think it's very accessible. I think SWAT used the KallistiOS to create the DreamShell.

Also, I'm thinking... What are the differences between using the Dev.Box and KallistiOS. Is the Dev.Box far better to program than using KallistiOS, or both are equal to work with? Or even... KallistiOS uses the same tools extracted from the official Dev.Box? Possibilities...

Another thing: Using a Broadband adapter to connect the DC to PC, you will have the serial port free (Broadband adapter is the expensive way, THIS CABE and THIS CABE are the cheap way). If you are connected to the Dreamcast using the Broadband adapter, there's some benefit to using a SD Card from the Dreamcast during a programming test?

[SWAT]

For direct connection of course it is more convenient (especially BBA), but to buy (or make) SD card is easier, and it works faster.
I'm use latest (at release) KallistiOS for DreamShell.

[rouken]

(21.06.2012 07:46)SWAT писал(а):  For direct connection of course it is more convenient (especially BBA), but to buy (or make) SD card is easier, and it works faster.

Let me know if I got it: Broadboard adapter is faster than SD-Card, and SD-Card is faster than PC/Serial Cable, right? Or is the SD-Card faster than both the Broadband adapter and the PC/Serial Cable?

In any case, the PC/DC connections is just to send data from PC to DC to test in the real hardware? I thought the PC/DC connection is to create a bridge programming between both devices and make them work together.

I think I had a wrong idea about the PC/DC connection for programming endings. So... The Dev.Kit works with the same principle?

So many questions... But questions are the base of the get knowledge, right?

[SWAT]

dcload-ip works with BBA in PIO mode, the speed in this mode for reading ~500 Kb/sec for writing ~2 Mb/sec.
You can upload dc executable from pc to dc faster than SD (copy files manually to card ), but linked filesystem (/pc dir from KOS fs in bba/serial case), if you app use it, got be slower reading than SD (/sd dir in fs).
My SD adapter works at 617 Kb/sec for reading.
In serial (TTL) case, dcload-serial works very slower than all.