In 1999 I went online with my Dreamcast (dial up) and entered a web address via the controller (no keyboard). I wanted to save the web page to read later so I videotaped the CRT using a camcorder. That seemed normal at the time 😆
When the browser got the ability to play mp3 files, I would download them one at a time, hook the audio out cables to a cassette deck, and record them on tape. It took 20-25 minutes for each mp3 to actually download, but man was it amazing at the time.
I remember getting a dreamcast for Christmas when I was 8 or 9. It was SO much more advanced than the ps1 and n64 we had at the time. I had no idea it could be online
The Sega dreamcast let me go online for the first time in my life back then . My friend back then was so jealous . The Sega dreamcast chat room was the best.
I use to go on there too it was MIRC chat. Later on I was able to get a PC and eventually learned the purpose of the MIRC chat was basically file sharing bootleg movies and music CDs and shit lol.
This brings back a lot of memories, because the Dreamcast was my primary way to browse the internet from 1999 to 2003. I even bought the keyboard peripheral cuz I was addicted to IRC chat and newsgroups. I'd used a clunky WebTV prior to that, but I switched to the Dreamcast because the hardware was way more powerful and provided a better overall experience. The web browsing was a really nice perk at the time, since home PCs weren't omnipresent yet.
@@AK47z Many households still didn't have PCs by that point. Some did, some didn't. I distinctly remember nobody I knew had a PC until around the early-to-mid-2000s when they hit the budget range.
@@walterwhite1 I got the year wrong. And? This was twenty years ago. Ok, so to correct the anal retentive nerd, I'll clarify that the Dreamcast was my primary way to browse the web from 99-01. I could've sworn I was using it as late as 02 or 03, but I guess I must be mixing up old memories from two decades ago. Is that ok with you, sir?
There was a local ISP, ironically that I wound up working for years later, that you could call and they would set you up with an account as pre-pay and you would just mail in a check. Not a very honest way of getting internet but I was 12 and single parent household, entering in all the dialup info and seeing it connected was seriously beautiful. Having that sense of connectedness even if it was just a Dreamcast was what the Internet was all about back in the day.
The Dreamcast was so much fun back in the day. I remember editing images in paint on PC, uploading them to a free host and downloading them to the VMU via the DC browser to use as tags in Jet Grind Radio. I loved that feature.
I still remember using my Dreamcast to go online for the very first time. And the sound of that dial up modem. It was like when you first lose your virginity, for the very first time. You never forget. I still own two of my Dreamcasts. And I still have a large collection of games for it. The system truly was, ahead of its time. Too bad it died so soon.
Sega Consoles were so much more powerful then ppl think. They were plagued with a poor marketing department. I had the Saturn and it was incredible. Had the Genesis also.
Sega problem wasn't the marketing. They messed up big time after the Mega Drive. Spent millions on 32X and Mega CD. 2 useless add-ons for the console. Saturn was a nightmare to develop for, began losing many 3rd parties. then came the Dreamcast, Sega was already with empty pockets and messed up again, the console was hacked and games could easily be copied and ripped into cds. So it was game over for the console and almost the company as well.
I won my Dreamcast in a contest when it came out. Was able to snag the coveted ethernet adapter as I was using cable internet for many years prior to that. It was neat and many websites worked fine with the browser albeit it was slow and kludgy compared to my other machines I had so never really used it much for that. Still, it was pretty neat a gaming machine had the ability to mirror what a real computer could do and not just be locked into packaged games.
Although I had been PC gaming online as a very young teenager, the ability to get a console to game, getting rid of the worry of having the right specs to play was awesome - Quake 3 was great with the modem
Back in 2001 when I got my Dreamcast, I tried to take it online. My mom saw what I was doing and immediately made me turn off the console and disconnect! It was like she just stopped a bomb from exploding! She was legitimately terrified of what was on the screen. Needless to say, we weren't really knowledgeable about what the Internet was or what it was capable of, yet.
lol she probably thought you broke it or were accessing some government database. baby boomers know how to code though, same with millennials who used MySpace. Back then in order to have a cool MySpace you had to learn the code to create the formats to have a cool MySpace page. The fact they destroyed old MySpace and deleted everyone's old profiles which took people lots of time to set up is a travesty itself
What were you about to look at ! ? My earliest memories of going online were chatting with Americans about singers Tiffany and Debbie Gibson. i even ordered a Tiffany CD from some company in the USA. The biggest problem was getting hit by about £10 import duty.
Well Dreamcast was launched in US a few months before the year 2000. Internet was a thing back then and PS2, Xbox and even Gamecube couls go online. Seeing as Dreamcast runs on Windows its kinda logical. But yeah it's still neat novelty
I had this console in the States about ten days before it came out. Guy from Hollywood video in green bay owed my bro a favour.. must have been one of the first in the Western world... Didn't even take a pic as proof 😭
One of my first at-home experiences with the internet was with the Dreamcast. My dad had a laptop so we had a computer in the house, but it wasn't for us to mess around with. So I had to make-do with the Dreamcast. I created my first email account that I still use as my main to this day. The web of the age wasn't as interesting to me as playing THPS or Hydro Thunder, but I got some mileage out of the browser with some NeoPets 🤣
The internet used to be so intriguing. Now I only visit 2 or 3 websites. The rest is TH-cam and podcasts. Clearly TH-cam is better than some weird looking websites, but the feeling of discovery has gone. Which is of course the natural way of things. VR has flashes of early internet excitement but it's largely a rehash of early internet. It's hard to see where the next real frontier is. It's certainly not Meta which is corporate controlled IP landfill right out of the gate.
Even though I’m more of a PlayStation type of guy, I really wish I could experience the Dreamcast at the time of its release. I loved Sega for their IP’s such as Crazy Taxi & House of the dead💙
Great vid Dan! I always thought the Dreamcast deserved more love. At the time it came out it was head and shoulders above everything else. Then the PS2 and Xbox came out with huge support, the poor Dreamcast didn't get the support so sadly it failed. Awesome Machine!
The Dreamcast was doomed to fail. -Their marketing department should have been fired years before the Dreamcast came out. -Sega really messed up with the Saturn and Genesis add-ons. They just released worse products than the competition right before the Dreamcast came out. -I imagine the online gaming experience was a lot worse without broadband internet. I remember the weird requirement of Xbox Live requiring broadband, but it makes more sense to me now.
Picked up a Dreamcast for mvc2 when it releases and imported an Ethernet adapter from Japan. Used it to go online and play pso ver 1. First console online game and easily logged 300+ hours with that game. Dreamcast was amazing
What's your fucking point lmao PC parts these days are ridiculously overpriced and ridiculously overpowered, of course consoles are not gonna be able to compete
we are reaching the end of the timeline before this crappy civilization restarts. u always know when its the end bcuz the reptiles run out of new ideas to keep advancing society
Growing up I had the SNES and Sega Genesis. I never had a Dreamcast. Thanks to youtube I am starting to find out more and more about obscure consoles. I love it. Thank you for sharing this.
I remember my friend and I getting in trouble for browsing porn on his Dreamcast. His mom took away the browser disc after finding out it was capable of that.
I wish I still had my Panasonic 3DO, it was impressive for the time. I paid $300 for it in the early 90’s Road Rash and Need for speed were pretty fantastic.
Reading comments before even settling in to this video, man I miss the 80s and 90s.. it was an exciting time to be a kid and grow up and fumble your way through the incoming IT and internet world. Wish I'd taken the whole industry more seriously as an occupation.
Its weird, the dreamcast I think reproduced color in general better than all the other consoles. But then again the dreamcast was actually the first of what is now modern consoles in that they are PCs, it was a pc both in hardware and software. It had a real OS, its hardware was built and designed from a PC standpoint with native vga signal output and modem or ethernet input, applications (not just games) and so on. and you look at the lastest and we just barely got official keyboard mouse support and web browsers lol XD
@@mromutt The Dreamcast didn't have PC hardware or software. Their CPU was a Hitachi SH-4 RISC processor and their OS (in some games, not all) was an altered version of Windows CE which was a mobile OS, not PC. They did have a PowerVR2 rendering engine.
@@mccalejk2 You just described a pocket pc. Which were basically PCs, desktops not long before that time were about the same power before the amd clones started pushing Intel. Actually my first ppc was more powerful than some of the computers I still had at the time haha. Maybe it wasn't a modern x86 architecture, but doesn't make it not a pc. So even if a dreamcast was just a ppc on steroids it was still a pc under the hood. (just like modern consoles are now)
We lived in the backwoods & I was surprised at how well the Dreamcast ran over dial up. 2 years ago we finally got high speed internet 😂. My brother set it up...We use to play Quake 3 arena & NFL 2K online.
I have the same setup that I bought new back in the day. I loved playing quake 3 online with the mouse and keyboard via broadband adaptor, low lag and competing against controller players was like shooting fish in a barrel.
As long as the solder joints and capacitors are in good shape it should continue working until the end of time. Keep it in a airtight box with some silica packets.
Hydro thunder was sooo good. The sequel Arctic Thunder didn't quite recapture the magic, but the arcade cabinet had a neat fan gimmick that would simulate the cold wind whenever you boosted on your snowmobile.
@@unblessedcoffee1457 I've always wanted to check it out, but most of the old fans were really lukewarm about it and I wasn't going to get a 360 just for that game.
When I was in college I didn’t want to lug my PC back home for Xmas break, so I thought I would be clever and just bring my monitor and use my Dreamcast and VGA adapter and browse the web that way. Let’s just say I spent most of my time playing games rather than browse the web online.
Dan ,great to see a new video on my fav console, such ashame it never got a chance to thrive as u say so many features ahead if time I had the broadband adapter and keyboard ,mouse back in the day but like most I traded it in probably for the console that was responsible for the dream cast death the ps2 Still got a dreamcast today which I play alot for things like crazy taxi. Virtua tennis , half life 2 , soul calibur
Dude! This was my first source of internet! lol The moment i seen the home screen i got all excited!.. I did play games of course but my first chats happened in Dream Chat and i used to do my record / vinyl shopping on it. And yes, when i bought it ..£300 i think it was, maybe £250 .. It came with a disc for the internet.. It didn't work. I had to get an update disc. But then it was dial up, 2p a minute! I don't want to advise my phone bill lol But yes, cheers for the upload
I only got into Dreamcast after emulating some of the games on my psclassic and yeah.. I missed out. In 2022 its one of my favorite consoles now. I was a poor kid back in the day.
Just commenting on the opening but I'll watch the video. I love these types of items that find their market after their "lifespan" I have tons of old stuff that I bought used that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE. I'd say, when these old items fall into the hands of someone that will cherish it, that is the beginning of it's life...
I never had Dreamcast. I went from ps1 to ps2 because it was a cheaper DVD player and there were way more good games being made for ps2, but I can see there was definitely some unique charm to this system.
I remember that differently, I had a Playstation at the time also, but I went over to the Dreamcast because it had such a good library of bangers that first 12 months, the PS2 didn't catch up pound for pound until 2002 I'd say, then it absolutely came into it's own but of course, the Dreamcast was long dead by then. I think if we go back to the PS2's first 12 or so months on the market, there wasn't really -that- great of a lineup, GTA 3 / GT3 onwards though and yeah, it was hit after hit. +1 for the cheap DVD player though, I think we all bought one for that !
Windows 98 is hands down the worst windows ever. I remember having to reinstall this garbage every month in order for it to work. XP was slightly better, but not much. Windows 7 was the first usable Windows system.
Ahhh.. my introduction to sublime directory, internet gaming, and a love forever for the Dreamcast. The memories. Unreal tournament, quake3 arena, phantasm star, the entire 2k line up, so much more.
If September 11, 2001 is the last time it was updated it would be a big coincidence. Probably a link to some small story that happened on that specific day.
Nice trip down memory lane. I worked for EBgames back then. The guys and I put one online one day after work to see what it could do. We decided we'd just rather play games on it.
First time online was the PS2 for me it was amazing and addictive. We had a internet cap I had the bill over 100$! More 😂 I would pay the game every day My mom unplugged the internet at night time so I could not play I sneak in the room and hook it back up. Bill too high she got rid of it 😂 My dad was smart he just gave me a system that didn't have online 😂 Nintendo 64 Call of duty 3 was amazing online
remember getting onto internet with dreamcast in 1998, it felt very special as it was before I owned a PC, while I had been online with the works PC, to come home and play quake 3 against people online and browse with the joypad and find out information was a very special time. Its of course snowballed now and we take it for granted. I definitely think people who went through the 80's and 90's and beyond with technology had such an amazing privilege to see how things have got to where they are now. Many of us went from nothing but a dream of how it could be, to the realities, some of them were slow and inexpensive, but year on year, they got to where they are now. The dreamcast was an amazing machine and it saddens me it and sega did not success how they should have.
This brings back memories. I too had limited resources for a pc and the Dreamcast opened that world for me. I had dial up and years later managed to grab a broadband adapter. The great thing about the Dreamcast was that individual games integrated the software to get online. So once you did it it saved the settings. Of course nowadays you have to go to private servers or hosted servers to play, but every once in awhile I’ll boot up a game and it will rarely take me to an online match. A great system far ahead of it’s time and I knew a lot of people who had one, but I feel just bad marketing and a lot of people were uninformed of what they really had.
Its not just bad marking, it had bad pr and the PlayStation 2 with its dvd player was just looming around the corner in a year or so and made the bold claim of display 72million polygons on screen per second. Of course that was a huge lie on Sony's part.
Did naughty sites pretty good back in the day.... I mean..... that's what I heard, teenage me would never look at naughty sites, of course not.... Great video mate, took me back. Edit: Maybe a video on webTV? Was super interesting. Just an idea sir.
I only set the Dreamcast up for online use because SEGA were giving away free copies of Chu Chu Rocket to those that did so. A really nice promotion and a pretty fun game too, especially in multiplayer.
Wow! I'll have to do some research and find out what dlc there was available for Skies of Arcadia. Never got to take my Dreamcast online so I was missing some of the experience.
Had a Dreamcast AND PS1 as a kid and the Dreamcast was used a lot more. Even when I got the PS2, it still got old then I fell back to the Dreamcast. Miss that thing!
It was my first foray onto the web browsing (at home, we had connectivity at work since about 1997) and it wasn't long before I discovered The Huns yellow pages! 👍🤣
Legendary machine!!! The keyboard was game changer...man this video is tuggin at my heart strings right now! PC was what followed for me and I'm sue a lot of young lads!
it was the highest selling system of all time when it comes to pre orders, PS2 killed it with dvd drive as it was much more easy to talk your family until buying something that could play dvds. also, the cost of a real dvd player was 600$. Also, most did see the value in getting a ps2. even a cheap dvd player you so did not want was 400$
The PS3 also ensured Blu-Ray's eventual victory in that format war. The Xbox 360 was the only home system that could run HD-DVD and it required a cumbersome and expensive add-on peripheral which nobody wanted to buy for such a small selection of movies.
Even the PSone outsold the Dreamcast by a f*ck tonne aswell. It's a shame, as the Dreamcast started with so much promise, but I think it was just too far ahead of its time. You're totally right about the DVD issue - that was definitely a deal breaker. If you think back to 1999 (and even early 2000s), the internet was still really only being used mostly by die-hard pc gamers. Casual folk would pop on now and again to send an email, or kill a few minutes at Uni in chatrooms. The vast majority of the people still didn't know what Ebay was and were much more occupied with buying and watching dvds than using the internet.
I remember using these operating systems even earlier. Use to be so frustrating but the prize was well worth it back then especially when you didn’t have cable
@@robertdaone I would love that if they made a new system but I think Microsoft is what killed Sega. They should merge with Sony. We need Japanese gaming companies
The best games on the sega dreamcast 4me only RESIDENT EVIL CODE VERONICA CRAZY TAXI HOUSE OF THE DEAD BERSERK wonderful video my mate you make us back to the beautiful days...Cheers🍺
man i miss Dreamcast. of all the systems ive had, going back to the nintendo NES when i was a kid of the 90s, its probably the one that makes me feel the most nostalgic. it was the last system that felt like games coming out were always creative rather than stuck in the serial output of the same thing slightly changed
I remember playing the dreamcast at a gaming store in a regional mall (EB games?) Several months before us launch, sonic was in Japanese. I really wanted one but ended up getting a PS2 a few years later. Eventually got a Dreamcast in 2010. Probably best time to get them for the price.
@9:32 "September 11, 2001. Maybe that was the last update?" In the background- Alien conspiracy? Government coverup? Why did the U.S. government put one on the moon?
I used to do tech support for the Dreamcast for Australia for a major telco. Can't say it was much fun as you would think. Our department had a dreamcast setup for problem solving. Absolute nightmare.
I actually connected my Dreamcast to the web using dialup back when Skies Of Arcadia came out and got the Aika DLC weapon (the Dreacast logo lollipop boomerang) from its official website and still to this day, keep it on my VMUs (I try to keep copying files between them at least once every six months to keep the data from deteriorating and the VMUs functional). Boy... Was the Dreamcast ahead of its time... Included web connectivity, online play (decent even on dialup), actual DLC, higher definition connection, modularity and expandability, etc. Had SEGA persevered, the Dreamcast would have been successful enough to keep them in the console race. They gave up too easily.
The music made in the background made me think I was in the intterogation room from call of duty black ops. I actually wasnt alive when the Dreamcast came out. Probably because I was born in the 2000s but this brings back some windows 7 vibes.
The Dreamcast was just a few years ahead of its time. Also the price was so high at launch compared to the N64 or PS1, the only people I knew who had them at or around launch were my adult cousins with jobs.
In 1999 I went online with my Dreamcast (dial up) and entered a web address via the controller (no keyboard). I wanted to save the web page to read later so I videotaped the CRT using a camcorder. That seemed normal at the time 😆
When the browser got the ability to play mp3 files, I would download them one at a time, hook the audio out cables to a cassette deck, and record them on tape. It took 20-25 minutes for each mp3 to actually download, but man was it amazing at the time.
@@homiedclown Wow. I can remember, and I can imagine. Cheers.
hahaha the good old days :) things were better then XD
Still got the film? Upload it if you can
Lol I didn’t ever record it but I did use my Dreamcast for browsing the web back then. It was a unique experience, but it worked !!
I loved the special memory cards for Dreamcast that played mini games like a tiny gameboy. Those were way ahead of their time
Facts
VMU’s
I'd like to see a 2022 version. It would make your console completely mobile with today's tech
Ahead of its time? It’s still not happening.
@@jasonphair8478 like our phones?
I remember getting a dreamcast for Christmas when I was 8 or 9. It was SO much more advanced than the ps1 and n64 we had at the time. I had no idea it could be online
The Sega dreamcast let me go online for the first time in my life back then . My friend back then was so jealous . The Sega dreamcast chat room was the best.
I use to go on there too it was MIRC chat. Later on I was able to get a PC and eventually learned the purpose of the MIRC chat was basically file sharing bootleg movies and music CDs and shit lol.
same, I even bought the keyboard
Sega walked so Microsoft could run
Came for some Dreamcast, got some much more satisfying late 90s internet nostalgia. Thank you for this.
It seems surprisingly responsive and usable for exploring the ancient web. Amazing!
My first experience of online gaming was on the Dreamcast as I couldn't afford a PC at the time. I loved Chu Chu Rocket and Phantasy Star online :)
Used to play revolt online. Remember thinking at the time... What is this LOL thing everyone keeps saying in the chat 😎
Same
Yep, first experienced online gaming and chatrooms on the DC. Could only play for an hour at a time as it racked up the phone bill!
Same buddy. Good times.
@@1invag "oh johnny, it means LaUgHiNg OuT LoUd"
This brings back a lot of memories, because the Dreamcast was my primary way to browse the internet from 1999 to 2003. I even bought the keyboard peripheral cuz I was addicted to IRC chat and newsgroups. I'd used a clunky WebTV prior to that, but I switched to the Dreamcast because the hardware was way more powerful and provided a better overall experience. The web browsing was a really nice perk at the time, since home PCs weren't omnipresent yet.
Wow blast from the past I had forgotten all about IRC
Home PC’s weren’t common by 1999? Windows was already on it’s 3rd OS, dial up had been out for 8 years…the struggle must of been real for you bro.
@@AK47z Many households still didn't have PCs by that point. Some did, some didn't. I distinctly remember nobody I knew had a PC until around the early-to-mid-2000s when they hit the budget range.
Why lie dude?
@@walterwhite1 I got the year wrong. And? This was twenty years ago. Ok, so to correct the anal retentive nerd, I'll clarify that the Dreamcast was my primary way to browse the web from 99-01. I could've sworn I was using it as late as 02 or 03, but I guess I must be mixing up old memories from two decades ago. Is that ok with you, sir?
Wow, that's a blast from the past! I remember racking up a £380 phone bill from using my dreamcast online 😂 my parents were FURIOUS!
I coded my first HTML on a Dreamcast when I was 12! Excellent memories getting to see my little basic webpage on the Dreamcast
There was a local ISP, ironically that I wound up working for years later, that you could call and they would set you up with an account as pre-pay and you would just mail in a check. Not a very honest way of getting internet but I was 12 and single parent household, entering in all the dialup info and seeing it connected was seriously beautiful. Having that sense of connectedness even if it was just a Dreamcast was what the Internet was all about back in the day.
Was it on neopets?
The Dreamcast was so much fun back in the day. I remember editing images in paint on PC, uploading them to a free host and downloading them to the VMU via the DC browser to use as tags in Jet Grind Radio. I loved that feature.
I still remember using my Dreamcast to go online for the very first time. And the sound of that dial up modem. It was like when you first lose your virginity, for the very first time. You never forget. I still own two of my Dreamcasts. And I still have a large collection of games for it. The system truly was, ahead of its time. Too bad it died so soon.
Hehehe. Soooo.... Not at all like during loosing my virginity for the 3rd time? Lmao plz dont take my wise crack personal.
Wish I kept my Dreamcast. Not gutted or anything but it would be nice to go back and play powerstone, sega rally and house of the dead.
I'll never forget when I lost my virginity for the third time....
Sega Consoles were so much more powerful then ppl think. They were plagued with a poor marketing department. I had the Saturn and it was incredible. Had the Genesis also.
Yep. I had the Saturn, great console.
I own them all
@@Ayixlia did u ever do the firmware update?
Sega problem wasn't the marketing. They messed up big time after the Mega Drive. Spent millions on 32X and Mega CD. 2 useless add-ons for the console. Saturn was a nightmare to develop for, began losing many 3rd parties. then came the Dreamcast, Sega was already with empty pockets and messed up again, the console was hacked and games could easily be copied and ripped into cds. So it was game over for the console and almost the company as well.
@@VegitoBlackityBlack For the Dreamcast?, no because I don't know where or how tro do it.
I used to talk to my friends all night in my bedroom in the mid 2000s with a AOL Instant Messenger specifically coded for Dreamcast
I won my Dreamcast in a contest when it came out. Was able to snag the coveted ethernet adapter as I was using cable internet for many years prior to that. It was neat and many websites worked fine with the browser albeit it was slow and kludgy compared to my other machines I had so never really used it much for that. Still, it was pretty neat a gaming machine had the ability to mirror what a real computer could do and not just be locked into packaged games.
Although I had been PC gaming online as a very young teenager, the ability to get a console to game, getting rid of the worry of having the right specs to play was awesome - Quake 3 was great with the modem
Great video! Not using my Dreamcast online back in the day is one of my all time biggest gaming regrets.
Back in 2001 when I got my Dreamcast, I tried to take it online. My mom saw what I was doing and immediately made me turn off the console and disconnect! It was like she just stopped a bomb from exploding! She was legitimately terrified of what was on the screen.
Needless to say, we weren't really knowledgeable about what the Internet was or what it was capable of, yet.
Your moms a legend!!!
Lol boomers
lol she probably thought you broke it or were accessing some government database. baby boomers know how to code though, same with millennials who used MySpace. Back then in order to have a cool MySpace you had to learn the code to create the formats to have a cool MySpace page. The fact they destroyed old MySpace and deleted everyone's old profiles which took people lots of time to set up is a travesty itself
What were you about to look at ! ?
My earliest memories of going online were chatting with Americans about singers Tiffany and Debbie Gibson.
i even ordered a Tiffany CD from some company in the USA. The biggest problem was getting hit by about £10 import duty.
@@MrDuncl Who? Lol.... I am American and I don't even know who those people are.
I was born in the mid 90s and I have so much nostalgia for the old internet
It always amazed me that in the mid to late 90s there were peripherals that would attempt or made your home console into an online browser
Well Dreamcast was launched in US a few months before the year 2000. Internet was a thing back then and PS2, Xbox and even Gamecube couls go online. Seeing as Dreamcast runs on Windows its kinda logical. But yeah it's still neat novelty
I had this console in the States about ten days before it came out. Guy from Hollywood video in green bay owed my bro a favour.. must have been one of the first in the Western world... Didn't even take a pic as proof 😭
One of my first at-home experiences with the internet was with the Dreamcast. My dad had a laptop so we had a computer in the house, but it wasn't for us to mess around with. So I had to make-do with the Dreamcast. I created my first email account that I still use as my main to this day. The web of the age wasn't as interesting to me as playing THPS or Hydro Thunder, but I got some mileage out of the browser with some NeoPets 🤣
Same, first internet browsing using this
@@ArtVandelayOfficial I was using the psp internet
@@VegitoBlackityBlack I used to like watching TH-cam videos on the 3ds and now it seems like torture.
You definitely tried watching porn with your dreamcast, didn't you?
The internet used to be so intriguing. Now I only visit 2 or 3 websites. The rest is TH-cam and podcasts. Clearly TH-cam is better than some weird looking websites, but the feeling of discovery has gone. Which is of course the natural way of things. VR has flashes of early internet excitement but it's largely a rehash of early internet. It's hard to see where the next real frontier is. It's certainly not Meta which is corporate controlled IP landfill right out of the gate.
Even though I’m more of a PlayStation type of guy, I really wish I could experience the Dreamcast at the time of its release. I loved Sega for their IP’s such as Crazy Taxi & House of the dead💙
Great vid Dan!
I always thought the Dreamcast deserved more love. At the time it came out it was head and shoulders above everything else.
Then the PS2 and Xbox came out with huge support, the poor Dreamcast didn't get the support so sadly it failed.
Awesome Machine!
The Dreamcast was doomed to fail.
-Their marketing department should have been fired years before the Dreamcast came out.
-Sega really messed up with the Saturn and Genesis add-ons. They just released worse products than the competition right before the Dreamcast came out.
-I imagine the online gaming experience was a lot worse without broadband internet. I remember the weird requirement of Xbox Live requiring broadband, but it makes more sense to me now.
Picked up a Dreamcast for mvc2 when it releases and imported an Ethernet adapter from Japan. Used it to go online and play pso ver 1. First console online game and easily logged 300+ hours with that game. Dreamcast was amazing
It’s unreal how far ahead of its time that sets was. Wouldn’t it be nice if new generation console releases were actually advanced?
The console hit the market just a bit too late.
What's your fucking point lmao PC parts these days are ridiculously overpriced and ridiculously overpowered, of course consoles are not gonna be able to compete
we are reaching the end of the timeline before this crappy civilization restarts. u always know when its the end bcuz the reptiles run out of new ideas to keep advancing society
@mVP I'm a PC gamer why the hell would I be crying lmao
That worked better than I expected to be honest. The scrolling is so smooth. Very cool!
Turns out the dreamcast lives on as a time machine for the old intrnet. Very good video. What an amazing little box.
You don't need a Dreamcast to look at the "old" Internet. Just fire up an older browser like Links, Lynx, or Gopher.
Growing up I had the SNES and Sega Genesis. I never had a Dreamcast. Thanks to youtube I am starting to find out more and more about obscure consoles. I love it. Thank you for sharing this.
I remember my friend and I getting in trouble for browsing porn on his Dreamcast. His mom took away the browser disc after finding out it was capable of that.
LMAO
Lol
I wish I still had my Panasonic 3DO, it was impressive for the time. I paid $300 for it in the early 90’s Road Rash and Need for speed were pretty fantastic.
Dude, I have a 3do still
No power cord or remotes but I have a space alien game 😆 😂 😄
@@a-listercrowley2737 I’d hang onto it, they are pretty rare
Aliweb was last updated on September 11, 2001. Reminds me of that tragedy.
That isnt a last online date, its a link to a tribute for people going through issues because of the incident.
RIP Norm Macdonald
@@NormCruise I'm surprised anyone caught that. Yes, R.I.P. best snl news anchor ever.
Dan nice to see you finally doing a review. I think it’s been about 10 years. 😁😁 since I sent it but either way hope all is well. Take care for now.
aliweb | September 11th, 2001
Hmm. Wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.
Fascinating stuff though, thanks for your work as always!
Reading comments before even settling in to this video, man I miss the 80s and 90s.. it was an exciting time to be a kid and grow up and fumble your way through the incoming IT and internet world. Wish I'd taken the whole industry more seriously as an occupation.
I don’t know if anyone else agrees but I’ve always felt the Dreamcast still has the best colour blue of any console!
now i need to buy many retro consoles to confirm this...
Its weird, the dreamcast I think reproduced color in general better than all the other consoles. But then again the dreamcast was actually the first of what is now modern consoles in that they are PCs, it was a pc both in hardware and software. It had a real OS, its hardware was built and designed from a PC standpoint with native vga signal output and modem or ethernet input, applications (not just games) and so on. and you look at the lastest and we just barely got official keyboard mouse support and web browsers lol XD
I agree!
@@mromutt The Dreamcast didn't have PC hardware or software. Their CPU was a Hitachi SH-4 RISC processor and their OS (in some games, not all) was an altered version of Windows CE which was a mobile OS, not PC. They did have a PowerVR2 rendering engine.
@@mccalejk2 You just described a pocket pc. Which were basically PCs, desktops not long before that time were about the same power before the amd clones started pushing Intel. Actually my first ppc was more powerful than some of the computers I still had at the time haha. Maybe it wasn't a modern x86 architecture, but doesn't make it not a pc. So even if a dreamcast was just a ppc on steroids it was still a pc under the hood. (just like modern consoles are now)
We lived in the backwoods & I was surprised at how well the Dreamcast ran over dial up. 2 years ago we finally got high speed internet 😂. My brother set it up...We use to play Quake 3 arena & NFL 2K online.
I still have my Dreamcast and N64 hooked up next to each other on a 42" CRT 😃
I have the same setup that I bought new back in the day. I loved playing quake 3 online with the mouse and keyboard via broadband adaptor, low lag and competing against controller players was like shooting fish in a barrel.
Still have mine today and get it out sometimes to play Hydro Thunder and Toy Commander. Amazed it still runs frankly.
As long as the solder joints and capacitors are in good shape it should continue working until the end of time. Keep it in a airtight box with some silica packets.
Hydro thunder was sooo good. The sequel Arctic Thunder didn't quite recapture the magic, but the arcade cabinet had a neat fan gimmick that would simulate the cold wind whenever you boosted on your snowmobile.
@@markm0000 It lives in my attic in northern England in the original box lol
@@Sashko_Dee you should try the remake, i thought it was decent honestly. Hydro Thunder Hurricane.
@@unblessedcoffee1457 I've always wanted to check it out, but most of the old fans were really lukewarm about it and I wasn't going to get a 360 just for that game.
Dreamcast was one of the best consoles growing up. Two games that stayed with me forever: Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
Dreamcast was awesome. The graphics were so sharp and shiny and the games were amazing :D
When I was in college I didn’t want to lug my PC back home for Xmas break, so I thought I would be clever and just bring my monitor and use my Dreamcast and VGA adapter and browse the web that way. Let’s just say I spent most of my time playing games rather than browse the web online.
Dan ,great to see a new video on my fav console, such ashame it never got a chance to thrive as u say so many features ahead if time
I had the broadband adapter and keyboard ,mouse back in the day but like most I traded it in probably for the console that was responsible for the dream cast death the ps2
Still got a dreamcast today which I play alot for things like crazy taxi. Virtua tennis , half life 2 , soul calibur
Dude! This was my first source of internet! lol The moment i seen the home screen i got all excited!.. I did play games of course but my first chats happened in Dream Chat and i used to do my record / vinyl shopping on it. And yes, when i bought it ..£300 i think it was, maybe £250 .. It came with a disc for the internet.. It didn't work. I had to get an update disc. But then it was dial up, 2p a minute! I don't want to advise my phone bill lol But yes, cheers for the upload
I only got into Dreamcast after emulating some of the games on my psclassic and yeah.. I missed out. In 2022 its one of my favorite consoles now. I was a poor kid back in the day.
Just commenting on the opening but I'll watch the video. I love these types of items that find their market after their "lifespan"
I have tons of old stuff that I bought used that I ABSOLUTELY LOVE.
I'd say, when these old items fall into the hands of someone that will cherish it, that is the beginning of it's life...
I never had Dreamcast. I went from ps1 to ps2 because it was a cheaper DVD player and there were way more good games being made for ps2, but I can see there was definitely some unique charm to this system.
yeh, game support died for Dreamcast overnight after Sony flooded the internet with every Dreamcast game released to that point for easy download
U missed out on powerstone?
I remember that differently, I had a Playstation at the time also, but I went over to the Dreamcast because it had such a good library of bangers that first 12 months, the PS2 didn't catch up pound for pound until 2002 I'd say, then it absolutely came into it's own but of course, the Dreamcast was long dead by then. I think if we go back to the PS2's first 12 or so months on the market, there wasn't really -that- great of a lineup, GTA 3 / GT3 onwards though and yeah, it was hit after hit.
+1 for the cheap DVD player though, I think we all bought one for that !
I showed my dad this video and he said he found it much smoother browsing than IE 4 on Windows 98.
Anything from back then is better than IE. Microsoft can’t develop a damn thing without multiple megabytes of spaghetti code.
What browser did he use back then on 98?
@@markm0000 My father used IE 4 at that time.
@@lilmonix Ok 👍 I used Opera 4 back in the day. I really liked how it had more customization and scrolling was very smooth.
Windows 98 is hands down the worst windows ever. I remember having to reinstall this garbage every month in order for it to work. XP was slightly better, but not much. Windows 7 was the first usable Windows system.
I remember getting this on release date after having saved up for a year at 14, it was revolutionary at the time!
I loved playing online in 1999 on the Dreamcast. Quake 3. Was laggy as heck but still fun.
Great video. Thanks for sharing it, Dan. I always had hoped Sega would have made a Dreamcast 2. Hmmm...so many possibilities.😎
It's called xbox
Did ya see the the part when he said it says September 11th was the last time it was updated was he not know the significance of that date
Ahhh.. my introduction to sublime directory, internet gaming, and a love forever for the Dreamcast. The memories.
Unreal tournament, quake3 arena, phantasm star, the entire 2k line up, so much more.
9:18 How did Dan not catch the significance of the date that Aliweb last got updated, September 11th, 2001!?!? Spooky!!
Really creepy
Loved playing on my brother’s Dreamcast, lol. Using the default browser and playing PSO V.1 and V.2 all Summer long 🥹
Great stuff!
9:25 I dont think that was referencing the last update of the website...
If September 11, 2001 is the last time it was updated it would be a big coincidence. Probably a link to some small story that happened on that specific day.
Most likely a coincidence. A lot of other things happened that day as well.
It's HQ was based in tower 7
My favorite system of all time!!! It was just purely ahead of its time
I had the broadband adapter for PS2. It was awesome. Me and 14 other people had a lot of fun for about 2 years.
The Dreamcast will always be the best for me just like the year 1999
Yeah agree 1999 was special
Nice trip down memory lane. I worked for EBgames back then. The guys and I put one online one day after work to see what it could do. We decided we'd just rather play games on it.
Great video as always Dan 👌
I brought a Dreamcast purely because it was the only console at the time that exclusively released Resident Evil: Code Veronica. Good times.
First time online was the PS2 for me it was amazing and addictive. We had a internet cap I had the bill over 100$! More 😂 I would pay the game every day
My mom unplugged the internet at night time so I could not play I sneak in the room and hook it back up. Bill too high she got rid of it 😂
My dad was smart he just gave me a system that didn't have online 😂 Nintendo 64
Call of duty 3 was amazing online
remember getting onto internet with dreamcast in 1998, it felt very special as it was before I owned a PC, while I had been online with the works PC, to come home and play quake 3 against people online and browse with the joypad and find out information was a very special time. Its of course snowballed now and we take it for granted.
I definitely think people who went through the 80's and 90's and beyond with technology had such an amazing privilege to see how things have got to where they are now.
Many of us went from nothing but a dream of how it could be, to the realities, some of them were slow and inexpensive, but year on year, they got to where they are now.
The dreamcast was an amazing machine and it saddens me it and sega did not success how they should have.
This is how suffering the internet in 2007 was on the PSP.
Still in my top 5. And I still feel like the controller is the best to date. Loved playing it.
This brings back memories. I too had limited resources for a pc and the Dreamcast opened that world for me. I had dial up and years later managed to grab a broadband adapter.
The great thing about the Dreamcast was that individual games integrated the software to get online. So once you did it it saved the settings. Of course nowadays you have to go to private servers or hosted servers to play, but every once in awhile I’ll boot up a game and it will rarely take me to an online match. A great system far ahead of it’s time and I knew a lot of people who had one, but I feel just bad marketing and a lot of people were uninformed of what they really had.
Its not just bad marking, it had bad pr and the PlayStation 2 with its dvd player was just looming around the corner in a year or so and made the bold claim of display 72million polygons on screen per second. Of course that was a huge lie on Sony's part.
9:30 I love the banner ad at the top, it fits the aesthetic perfectly
Bought my DC at the end of life for 99usd, picked up the broadband adapter, KB/mouse for cheap, never did go online with it tho.
The Sega Dreamcast is my absolute favorite system of all time when it was new and also still now in 2022
I owned a Dreamcast back in the days and I didn’t even know it could browse the web … Awesome!! 😎👍✨
Did naughty sites pretty good back in the day.... I mean..... that's what I heard, teenage me would never look at naughty sites, of course not....
Great video mate, took me back.
Edit: Maybe a video on webTV? Was super interesting. Just an idea sir.
Them where the days.
I only set the Dreamcast up for online use because SEGA were giving away free copies of Chu Chu Rocket to those that did so.
A really nice promotion and a pretty fun game too, especially in multiplayer.
Wow! I'll have to do some research and find out what dlc there was available for Skies of Arcadia. Never got to take my Dreamcast online so I was missing some of the experience.
Bro I thought you were joking... I had no clue Dreamcast had DLC wtf thats dope
Had a Dreamcast AND PS1 as a kid and the Dreamcast was used a lot more. Even when I got the PS2, it still got old then I fell back to the Dreamcast. Miss that thing!
It was my first foray onto the web browsing (at home, we had connectivity at work since about 1997) and it wasn't long before I discovered The Huns yellow pages! 👍🤣
Legendary machine!!! The keyboard was game changer...man this video is tuggin at my heart strings right now! PC was what followed for me and I'm sue a lot of young lads!
it was the highest selling system of all time when it comes to pre orders, PS2 killed it with dvd drive as it was much more easy to talk your family until buying something that could play dvds. also, the cost of a real dvd player was 600$. Also, most did see the value in getting a ps2. even a cheap dvd player you so did not want was 400$
The PS3 also ensured Blu-Ray's eventual victory in that format war. The Xbox 360 was the only home system that could run HD-DVD and it required a cumbersome and expensive add-on peripheral which nobody wanted to buy for such a small selection of movies.
PS2 bad console architecture, cheap DVD player
Even the PSone outsold the Dreamcast by a f*ck tonne aswell. It's a shame, as the Dreamcast started with so much promise, but I think it was just too far ahead of its time.
You're totally right about the DVD issue - that was definitely a deal breaker. If you think back to 1999 (and even early 2000s), the internet was still really only being used mostly by die-hard pc gamers. Casual folk would pop on now and again to send an email, or kill a few minutes at Uni in chatrooms. The vast majority of the people still didn't know what Ebay was and were much more occupied with buying and watching dvds than using the internet.
@@JAGtheTrekkieGEMINI1701 No.
@@LSDPband Wrong, Yes is correct answer
I remember using these operating systems even earlier. Use to be so frustrating but the prize was well worth it back then especially when you didn’t have cable
I always loved Sega. I just wish they would make some cool games again
Or bring out another game system.
@@robertdaone I would love that if they made a new system but I think Microsoft is what killed Sega. They should merge with Sony. We need Japanese gaming companies
@@barryklinedinst6233 Well that and Dreamcast games were so easy to copy also from what I heard. That did in Sega I think also.
Color me surprised. You can tell the skill of the developers of the Dreamcast, even decades after its launch.
The best games on the sega dreamcast 4me only
RESIDENT EVIL CODE VERONICA
CRAZY TAXI
HOUSE OF THE DEAD
BERSERK
wonderful video my mate you make us back to the beautiful days...Cheers🍺
Tokyo Extreme Racer might be one of if not the best street racing game ever made. And you forgot about Phantasy Star Online
@@RaulDukeKnife i don't remember them But i miss i playing moon walker on sega md And road rash classic on panasonic 3do
man i miss Dreamcast. of all the systems ive had, going back to the nintendo NES when i was a kid of the 90s, its probably the one that makes me feel the most nostalgic. it was the last system that felt like games coming out were always creative rather than stuck in the serial output of the same thing slightly changed
The Dreamcast was my introduction to internet porn. What a time to be alive.
I was lmao thinking the same thing… glad YOU posted it 🤣
I remember playing the dreamcast at a gaming store in a regional mall (EB games?) Several months before us launch, sonic was in Japanese. I really wanted one but ended up getting a PS2 a few years later. Eventually got a Dreamcast in 2010. Probably best time to get them for the price.
@9:32
"September 11, 2001. Maybe that was the last update?"
In the background- Alien conspiracy? Government coverup? Why did the U.S. government put one on the moon?
Yes it can, that saves you time browsing and making a video
I think the _September 11th 2001_ at 9:21 is not the last time the site was updated, but the date of a terrorist attack on the US.
I used to do tech support for the Dreamcast for Australia for a major telco. Can't say it was much fun as you would think. Our department had a dreamcast setup for problem solving. Absolute nightmare.
instant thumb up 👍
I had WebTV for a little while as a kid. This reminds me so much of that. Wild!
Ah yes yt censorship strikes again… I never had a Dreamcast but I played around with a certain piece of software on my computer.
I actually connected my Dreamcast to the web using dialup back when Skies Of Arcadia came out and got the Aika DLC weapon (the Dreacast logo lollipop boomerang) from its official website and still to this day, keep it on my VMUs (I try to keep copying files between them at least once every six months to keep the data from deteriorating and the VMUs functional).
Boy... Was the Dreamcast ahead of its time... Included web connectivity, online play (decent even on dialup), actual DLC, higher definition connection, modularity and expandability, etc.
Had SEGA persevered, the Dreamcast would have been successful enough to keep them in the console race. They gave up too easily.
Thanks for making this video. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
The music made in the background made me think I was in the intterogation room from call of duty black ops. I actually wasnt alive when the Dreamcast came out. Probably because I was born in the 2000s but this brings back some windows 7 vibes.
This amount of function is quite interesting. I expected something that paralleled my experiences trying to get online with a Wii!
The Dreamcast was just a few years ahead of its time. Also the price was so high at launch compared to the N64 or PS1, the only people I knew who had them at or around launch were my adult cousins with jobs.