The Sega Dreamcast, released in 1998, used a custom one-gigabyte format called GD-ROM, which was unreadable by PC and DVD drives. The console had a multi-layered protection scheme, but hackers discovered a way to defeat it by using the Mil-CD format, a multimedia disc format used for karaoke. By replicating the Mil-CD format, hackers could reverse-scramble the game executable, allowing them to boot and play copied games without modifying the console. The discovery was made by the release group Utopia, who used the Sega Katana development kit to develop an application to dump the contents of a GD-ROM. The process involved transferring the contents over to a PC using a coder's cable and then compressing and repacking the game with the Mil-CD bootloader. Sega eventually removed the Mil-CD functionality in later revisions of the console, but the exploit allowed hackers to release copied games without requiring a modchip.
Here are the key facts from the text:
1. The Sega Dreamcast was a part of the sixth generation of home consoles.
2. The Dreamcast was the second Sega console to use an optical drive.
3. The Dreamcast was designed to take advantage of fast 3D arcade hardware.
4. The Dreamcast hardware was also used in its arcade counterpart, the Sega Naomi.
5. The Dreamcast comes with four control ports and supports various peripherals.
6. The Dreamcast was the first console to come standard with a built-in modem for online play.
7. Games came on GD-ROMs, a custom format developed by Sega and Yamaha.
8. GD-ROMs are unreadable by PC and DVD drives beyond the first track.
9. The first track of a GD-ROM contains an audio track that is 35 megabytes in size.
10. The remaining 984 megabytes of a GD-ROM contain the game data.
11. The Dreamcast has a multi-layered copy-protection scheme.
12. The copy-protection scheme involves a boot process that looks for two files: IP.BIN and 1ST_READ.BIN.
13. The IP.BIN file contains metadata about the game, including the game's name, region, and peripherals.
14. The 1ST_READ.BIN file is the game executable.
15. The Dreamcast can also boot regular CDs with a format known as mil-CD.
16. Mil-CDs were used for multimedia features, such as karaoke.
17. Sega removed the mil-CD functionality in the second revision of the Dreamcast.
18. The Utopia release group discovered a way to defeat the copy-protection scheme using a Sega Katana development kit.
19. The Utopia group created a CD called the Utopia disc, which could launch any game executable from a copied CD.
20. The Katana SDK was used to develop an application to dump the contents of a GD-ROM.
21. A simple cable called a coder's cable was used to transfer the contents of a GD-ROM to a PC.
22. Release groups compressed video and audio files to fit a one-gigabyte game onto a 700-megabyte CD.
23. The Dreamcast SD Rip is a device that can be used to rip GD-ROMs onto an SD card.
24. Some PC DVD drives with custom firmware can rip GD-ROMs without requiring a Dreamcast.