Celebrate 9/9/99 with the smallest Dreamcast Portable to date!
20 Years of Dreamcast, and it’s still thinking. Designed for Bitbuilt’s 2019 Forum Summer Contest, Gman returned to Greatness winning 1st Place with his 2DC entry, having won the inaugural Summer Contest but dethroned by Aurelio in the 2018 Contest. Armed with the Definitive Dreamcast Trimming Guide and a Dual Screen form-factor, the 2DC looks to reignite the Portable Dreamcast Scene.
Specifications:
-Same overall size as the Nintendo 2DS
-Trimmed Sega Dreamcast Motherboard
-Game Loading Via GDEMU Drive Replacement
-DC+ Dreamcast controller emulator
-3.5″ VGA 320×240
-Integrated volume control through I2C
-DAC for OSD menu control
-Future hardware support for VMU emulation
-Power Management Board modified from WII PMS
-Charge/Play capabilities
-RGB led interface
-USB-C PD charging
-5amp lithium polymer battery
-Custom designed and molded buttons
-31mm at thickest point
Thanks to the tireless work of Nold and The Definitive DC Trimming Guide, coupled with a Drive Replacement Solution and some hacking ingenuity, the Dreamcast motherboard can be hacked down to a smaller footprint.
A few components were in need of relocation of course, but with a Power Management System board (converted from his Wii PMS design) and additional custom regulators for power and voltage, along with few custom circuits like a Controller Emulator (not unlike Aurelio’s GC Plus for Wii/GC) and a DAC for Menu/Volume controls, the parts needed were efficiently replaced where space was at a premium.
The 2DC is the first portable to use this guide, and while the trimming guide is still in it’s infancy, it’s definitely a great
start to further the Portable Dreamcast Scene.
Using the design cue from the Controller VMU, the 2DC took shape in that of the Nintendo 2DS, perfectly capturing the experience of the Dreamcast’s first “dual screen” console experience.
While the 2DC has the same overall footprint as the Nintendo 2DS, naturally it had to be a bit thicker to hold all the components, but it still measures just a paltry 31mm at it’s thickest point, about one and a half times thicker than the size of the 2DS’s 20.32 mm.
You can find out more information about the 2DC on the Bitbuilt forums with his Completed Build Thread and his worklog. Want even more Gman? Who doesn’t? If you’ve ever looked up portables on the internet, you’ve probably seen at least some of his work. We could be here for days linking to everything created by the one-man portable factory known as Gman, but here are a few of our favorites.