I know for a fact some of you guys know more about this than me. ASSEMblergames pretty much has a help desk around setting up Dreamcast development stuff so people know things, they just haven't bothered to write much of it down. Luckily for the world, I have. Unluckily for the world, I only have a vague idea of what I'm talking about. Dreamcast Dev.Box Controller Box Sound Box GD-Writer C1/C2 Checker - I don't even know what this is Dev.Cas Dreamcast GD-ROM Duplicator please correct me. Most of the facts came from YouTube and I sure as hell don't own any of these things myself. One thing I'm fascinated by is that controller box thing. Why there's so many out there, despite the hardware being completely useless to anybody. Rumours state it connects to an even older dev kit that pre-dates the controller ports - is that true?
I remember years ago downloading the Kitana Dev Kit Software years ago, but that's the extent of what I know of it. This is about 10 years ago mind you.
This. I remember reading about the revelation of the Dreamcast in an older magazine (I think "Tips and Tricks", but I'm not entirely sure), and I actually remember them saying that Sega was using a Saturn 3D controller in the tech demos because the Dreamcast controller was indeed still in development. The Controller Box wiki article is the first time I've ever heard that fact mentioned since then. I'm very curious and fascinated by this also. The dev kits have controller ports, so the rumor of there being an older Katana dev kit could be plausible. The memory card ports are the most intriguing thing about the box. This legendary older dev kit could have very well predated the conception of the VMU. Makes me wonder if the memory cards themselves ever reached the prototype stage and whether or not one or two are in a developer or collector's hands.
There's actually an even older model which pre-dates Katana branding. http://stud4.tuwien.ac.at/~e9325367/ControllerBox.jpg they call it a "Game Controller Convert Box" and apparently this is most likely to work with the "Set 4" development kit, of which there are no photos (the ones you tend to find are "Set 5"s). Don't know what this says about Sets 1, 2 and 3. On a side note, apparently the Dreamcast still has a "maple bus" - there's all sorts of info about how it works.
Honestly, that looks more like the ports at the top are the slots where things like VMU and such would go and the ports at the front are where the controllers go. Seems to be the same for the other pic, which is essentially the same thing with "Katana" on it. Consider it more like an "emulator" of the Dreamcast controller.
I think the Game Controller Convert box takes Sega Saturn controllers and converts the input to Dreamcast, and that's what the slots at the bottom of the picture are.
