[YouTube] XBAND Video Game Modem

https://youtu.be/R7Q6nXAKraQ

The XBAND Video Game Modem was created by Catapult Entertainment and distributed by THQ in November 1994 for the Sega Genesis and in June 1995 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Although no 16-bit games were designed for online play, the modem allowed two players to compete with one another online. It fits into the console's cartridge slot with a supported game cartridge being plugged into the top of the modem. Subscriptions for online play cost $7.95/month or $39.75 for six months and had a limited number of credits (one game session per credit) per month. Those prices are stated in the manual but when I acquired the device in 1995 the cost had been reduced to $4.95/month. It also appears as if the modem was originally $69.95 but within about six months the cost was reduced to $19.99. 

From within the XBAND network users could also read news, check stats, and send messages, and to assist in typing messages an optional keyboard accessory was available for purchase as well. I only subscribed for one month, primarily because it didn't work well where I lived. It's not too surprising since at the time I was living in the outskirts of a small town. I expect it faired much better for those that lived in or nearby major cities as the review below from Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) indicates the service ran quite well for them. NHL 95 would have be the only game I played on XBAND since I loved EA's hockey series. Maybe Madden would have worked better since it isn't as fast as hockey and you aren't trying to deke a goalie to score but I never tried that one. Every player had their win-loss record tracked for each game and the best players sometimes appeared in the pages of game magazines.

The above scans are all from 1995 issues of Electronic Gaming Monthly.

It's a unique product for the time period as it is one of the earliest online gaming devices for consoles, perhaps the first in North America. The XBAND was available in Japan and Brazil too, and Sega actually had its own online service called Meganet in those regions but that never materialized in North America. The XBAND service ended in April 1997 as the 16-bit generation was winding down. All of the supported games on Genesis were either sports titles or fighting games which makes sense since this is about competing. I expect having two-player same-screen multiplayer would be required but the SNES did support Super Mario Kart which would have had split-screen multiplayer. I'm not sure if the following supported games lists are completely accurate; Wikipedia also mentions NHL '94 for Genesis and Kirby's Avalanche for SNES.

Supported Genesis Games: Madden NFL 95, Madden NFL 96, NBA Live 95, NBA Live 96, NHL 95, NHL 96, NBA Jam, Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, Primal Rage, Super Street Fighter II, and Weaponlord. 

SNES Supported Games: Madden NFL 95, Madden NFL 96, NHL 95, NHL 96, NBA Jam T.E., Mortal Kombat II, Mortal Kombat 3, Super Street Fighter II, Weaponlord, Killer Instinct, Doom, Super Mario Kart, and Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball.

When doing some research I was surprised to find a XBAND Twitter account run by a former Catapult employee but he hasn't posted in a couple years. SNES Central has a variety of pictures of that console's purple modem taken from a variety of other sources here. I took some photos and scanned the box and some paperwork, though I didn't scan the whole manual, only a portion of it. A couple of the inner box sides have facsimile autographs of the development team.

[YouTube] Commodore VICMODEM

https://youtu.be/6RfzdNWs53g

Commodore released the VICMODEM (Commodore goes all caps so I'll stick with it) in March 1982 for its VIC-20 computer, though it also works on the Commodore 64 (C64) and 128. The VIC-20 launched in 1981 for $299 and the manual states that with the modem the two combined cost under $410 so my best guess is the modem retailed for approximately $110. While other modems certainly existed at the time, it was still new technology for most home computer users. This modem varies from later dial-up modems that would have the phone plug into it and then another cable would run from the modem to the jack. For the VICMODEM, users must disconnect the line from the telephone handset and plug that into the single port. The maximum baud rate of the modem is 300 bps (bits per second). If I understand all of this correctly, a 28.8 Kbps modem -- common in the '90s and what I used when I first played Starsiege: Tribes in 1999 -- is about 100 times faster than a 300 baud modem. Broadband speeds vary but if you aren't familiar with the speeds of modems before broadband, figure a cable modem is 35,000 times faster than the VICMODEM.

 

Packaged with the modem was a cassette tape containing software for the VIC-20 computer on one side and the C64 on the other, and a free subscription to CompuServe. CompuServe was an early online service founded in 1969 and later owned by H&R Block. The free subscription only included one hour on its information service, though apparently using other features, such as Commodore's network, were not part of that hour. I've never used it but I believe it was comparable to America Online which I expect is far better known. I do have a variety of ads for CompuServe that I'll post to Flickr after I get through all of the game ads. There were a number of activities that the service could be used for, all things that can be accomplished on today's Internet: invest, shop, use forums, book flights, read news, etc.

I've mentioned in the past that I inherited my C64 and the modem came with it. Otherwise, I don't expect I would have even known modems existed at the time. What I did with the modem was connect directly to terminals run by other home users. People would essentially host a server, or bulletin board as they are often called, that users would call through their phone line and once connected they could access what the host provided. That could be message boards, software to download, or an online game to play. The only game I can recall was named Empire (I think!) where players attacked and defended a kingdom. It was completely text and turn-based as players would select what to do with their troops, log off, then log back in later to see what happened. So who were these people hosting servers? They could really be anybody but the majority I was calling were probably high school kids using their parent's phone. In fact, sometimes when I'd call an adult would answer rather than a computer and I'd hang up immediately, of course.

 


Since the modem worked like a phone, calling far away would result in a long distance charge and therefore I was calling numbers of nearby locations in Connecticut. I think I was using the modem around 1987 when I would have been 12 and it would have been my neighbor who was in high school at the time that was able to provide some numbers to call. Each host would provide a name for their site and I still have a list of 23 of the hosts I'd call when I was a kid. Some names aren't very creative, such as Paradise, Country Club, and Flipside. Others are a little more fun, like Paisley Socks, Metal Mansion, Midnight Express, and The Phantom's Opera House. Then it was likely the cool nerds with the names Thunderdome, Xanadu, Excalibur, and Demon's Domain III.

It's amazing to see where we are today when it comes to technology. For myself and likely everyone else interested in gaming, it's really been a lot of fun to be able to experience the significant growth of computers and gaming over the past four decades. For those that were born in the past 20 years, it's likely a bit difficult to understand just how slow modems were at one time and appreciate where we're at today. Though most houses have phone jacks, I'm not even sure if today's kids would know how an old telephone functions. I wish I could have demonstrated how this works but with my C64 out of commission and the fact that I don't have a phone or a landline, and there wouldn't be an active server to call either, I'm not sure if it's possible to get it to make noise. My photos lack a phone too but I do still have a phone handset cord so I added that to a few. I've got scans of much of the paperwork as well, though I only scanned the cover and first few pages of the 24-page manual since those are the most entertaining.