The Sega Saturn NetLink League

Hi all,

I wonder if it does work or it doesnt. I read it doesnt work so you just can dial up to another user right?

Internet Relay Chat, or IRC, is a somewhat centralized service - not something you connect directly to another user to do. You use an IRC client to connect to an IRC server, from which you can chat with other users logged into that server. I've read that there was an IRC client on the PlanetWeb browser, but I've never tried it personally, nor do I know if it's of any use any longer. There are some web pages that can act as IRC clients, with which you could connect to a server and chat with others. You'd need to use the NetLink web browser disc and have a dial-up Internet Service Provider (ISP) working with your Saturn for that, though. You'd also have to find a web page that would be compatible with the NetLink browser, which is very dated. If you did find all of these things, typing would be quite cumbersome unless you also had a keyboard for your Saturn.

The few NetLink games that exist would let you dial up another NetLink player using the same game and play with them... assuming both of you have analog phone service, which is becoming quite rare these days. There's a brief period where you can type messages to each other after a match, I believe. However, it wouldn't be an IRC session, and it would be very brief.

I've seen the IRC thing in the broswer, but never tried it too. I don't kow about IRC stuff (I mean, how to use it). I think that if you can setup a simple page with this feature, like a lot of pages used back in the day, you can open it in the browser. If you can open in Internet Explorer 3 or 4 and even 5, it will work in the PlanetWeb. Can you make this page? Do you remember how to do it?

The dial thing, like said above, does not affect the broswer. To use the broswer you need to connect to the internet, using an ISP (free or paid) and the modem, just like everybody used in the computer back in the day. (before ISDN and ADSL and cable)

Only the games use the dial-to-dial setup. So one game calls and the other pick-up and they connect like a fax machine.
There was a "system" like a server to help find people, via a link in the first page of the game, but it's offline. And the connection would drop anyway and the players call each other. Because the games were programed that way. It's faster for them to work when the connections are direct.
So the "system" was just a page on Sega servers. The game actually can access the ISP configuration in the internal memory and connect to the internet just like the browser. (It access the files saved by the browser, to avoid people from typing login and password and phone number again and again). But the gameplay is direct dial anyway.

Easy, right?
Two software types: browser and game.
Browser uses the internet.
Browser is included in any game to access the "zone" (page with guestbook, lobby, chat, player list, etc).
Game connect each other.

I do use IRC, but I don't currently have an ISP set up for my Saturn to test with. That's an ongoing problem as I have time to work on it with what resources I have available to me. I'd like to get to the bottom of it.

Most people use IRC clients, not webpages set up to be IRC clients. Some use browser plugins. The one web-based one that I've used I somehow doubt would work in a version of IE that old.

Rogue wrote:I've seen the IRC thing in the broswer, but never tried it too. I don't kow about IRC stuff (I mean, how to use it). I think that if you can setup a simple page with this feature, like a lot of pages used back in the day, you can open it in the browser. If you can open in Internet Explorer 3 or 4 and even 5, it will work in the PlanetWeb. Can you make this page? Do you remember how to do it?

The dial thing, like said above, does not affect the broswer. To use the broswer you need to connect to the internet, using an ISP (free or paid) and the modem, just like everybody used in the computer back in the day. (before ISDN and ADSL and cable)

Only the games use the dial-to-dial setup. So one game calls and the other pick-up and they connect like a fax machine.
There was a "system" like a server to help find people, via a link in the first page of the game, but it's offline. And the connection would drop anyway and the players call each other. Because the games were programed that way. It's faster for them to work when the connections are direct.
So the "system" was just a page on Sega servers. The game actually can access the ISP configuration in the internal memory and connect to the internet just like the browser. (It access the files saved by the browser, to avoid people from typing login and password and phone number again and again). But the gameplay is direct dial anyway.

Easy, right?
Two software types: browser and game.
Browser uses the internet.
Browser is included in any game to access the "zone" (page with guestbook, lobby, chat, player list, etc).
Game connect each other.

thanks a lot for the response.

I remember back in the 90s some games with a friend via modem directly using my PC and duke nukem, hehe.