Dreamcast Cable And CD burning Program

[WarGames]

Hey guys,
I was trying to build my own DC to PC serial cable, and a neogeo link was needed which is actually more expensive than the commercial link cable. Anyway, does anyone know how one can be made without a neo geo link cable, or does anyone know where the best place to buy an actual serial cable link for the dreamcast?

Also I have DirectCD for my windows98 installed on my computer and I am planning on burning some emulation disks for my dreamcast but I remember reading that with this program on installed on my computer "Adaptec DirectCD" screws up the burning process for dreamcast burn sessions. I have a boot disc so I am not worried about it being self boot I just was wondering if there was anything valid to that statement.

Thanks!

[quzar]

There is no easy way to build a serial cable without the neo geo cable. The reason it was used was because of the cable which plugs into the DC which is proprietary. You are much better off buying a serial cable. They can be found for like 20$ sometimes.

For DC burning I have always used Nero.

[curt_grymala]

Well, if you are going to use a boot disc, you can use any standard burning program to burn your discs. However, you cannot use DirectCD, because it actually uses its own burning method (UDF). However, since you have DirectCD, I'm assuming you should have a copy of Easy CD Creator around there somewhere, too (as I have always seen them bundled together), and you can use Easy CD Creator to burn the plain files on a disc. As mentioned previously, this will not be selfbooting, but you can use the boot disc to boot the programs.
If you are looking for a good way to selfboot things, then I suggest using Selfboot Inducer v4, and burning your discs with CDRecord (which comes bundled in Selfboot Inducer).

[BlackAura]

If you don't mind taking your Dreamcast apart and modifying that, you can actually replace the serial port with a standard 9-pin one. Basically, the circuit is the same as the cable one, but you solder the connections to the Dreamcast's motherboard, or to the back of the serial connector.

Aside from that, it's apparently possible to bend a video cable (although it has to have enough pins, of course) into the same shape as the serial cable. However, I think you need a VGA box or an RGB cable to do that with, and it'd probably be easier to just buy a commercial serial cable.

[Eric]

I thought i would put this link in here do to BlackAura's reply and this goes for VGA and RGB but again if you dont know what your doing and if the video isnt what it should be i recommend buying one.

http://www.gamesx.com/avpinouts/dricas.htm

Eric