Also, while were on the topic of composite cables, these shouldnt be confused with component cables, which are a different thing entirely.

While we here at the Junkyard pore over the minutiae of Dreamcast collecting and the more obscure side of the consoles paraphernalia, it has become increasingly apparent that the Dreamcast is attracting a whole new audience as intrigued gamers start collecting for the system.

The Dreamcast has been undergoing something of a renaissance for a couple of years now, and as such we thought it was about time that we offered up some basic beginners guides to various aspects of the Dreamcast for those who arent fully au fait with the many foibles of the hardware.

First up, were going to look briefly at the various cables that will allow you to connect your Dreamcast to a tellybox or monitor doo-dah, and what the pros and cons are.

As the name suggests, this really will be a quick reference guide, giving the bare minimum that you need to know if youre a bit clueless when it comes to cables and connections and dont know your SCART from your composite or your VGA from your RF.

Hey - its a minefield out there if youre new to the scene, but luckily old uncle Junkyard is here to guide you.like the blind leading the blind Please remember that this is a beginners guide and so Im not really going to go into the science behind it all.

Ill leave that to someone with far greater knowledge than I have.

OK, so the first thing to know is that there are a number of different cable variants for the Dreamcast and they all give a picture of varying quality and have differing connectors on the business end.

The underside of this connector does have a differing number of pins depending on the type, but physically at least, they look the same.

The key thing to remember is that you shouldnt try to jab this end into your TV or monitor.

If you do, at best youll end up with a broken cable; at worst youll end up electrocuting yourself and burning the house down.

Probably. Right, on to the good stuff.

There are 5 main connection types for the Dreamcast and these are they.

Coaxial RF (Official designation HKT-8830) This connector was the standard in the box type that came with most Dreamcasts and generally it offers the most basic and lowest quality connection.

The little box in the middle of the two wires allows you to plug a coaxial TV aerial into it, meaning you could switch between TV and game signals in the age of analogue terrestrial TV.

Image quality here is pretty lousy and sound is muffled, but back in the day most people used this simply because it was what came in the box.

Indeed, many Dreamcast owners (and retro gamers in general) probably have drawers full of these things - I know I do.

Absolutely useless these days to be honest, unless you have literally no other method of connecting your Dreamcast to your television.

The sound and image signals are sent down one coaxial cable meaning the audio and visual components are mixed, resulting in low quality reproduction fired into your eyes and ears respectively.

I have to admit that for the longest time back when I owned my original Dreamcast in 1999, RF was what I used and I still thought all the games I played looked amazing.

Composite Cable (Official designation HKT-7900) A slight step up from the RF cable, is composite.

Sometimes referred to as RCA too, composite breaks the signal from the Dreamcast into three, with video and left and right audio channels all being treated to their own bit of wire.

This results in a superior image and better audio when compared to coaxial RF cables.

This is quite a common connection and is quite widely used as many TVs have the red, white and yellow circular connector ports on the back and the corresponding terminals are pretty easy to fathom out and plug in.

Where composite can get a little confusing is that you can plug the three differently coloured pins into a SCART adapter block and then use the SCART connector on the back of a TV.however this isnt true RGB SCART (more on that in a bit); its just composite being converted into a SCART-shaped connector and doesnt really do anything to improve the image.

Dreamcast Official Vga Box Rare