Snes/genesis modem today

Former Xbanders on SNES or Genesis can get in touch with each other here. Also for people who wish to help with the Xband revival project.
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Rainbow-dead
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Joined: Sat Sep 19, 2015 11:17 am

Snes/genesis modem today

Post by Rainbow-dead »

Hello, I have a question. May i use original xband modem for SNES/Genesis today. I think it work like Netlink modem(Just dial with opponent)?
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Warp2063
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Re: Snes/genesis modem today

Post by Warp2063 »

No. While the NetLink was built off of the XBAND technology, the XBAND used a subscription service model. Basically, you paid Catapult (the owners of the service) a fee for a certain number of matches. Your XBAND would dial up their servers, then their system would match you to an appropriate opponent also looking to play, and instruct one of your modems to dial the other. There was no way to manually dial an opponent - it had to be done through their matchmaking service. Their servers have been offline since the mid-90s, so there's no way for the modem to figure out who to connect to.

There are other problems, too. With the exception of Weaponlord, none of the games were designed to work with the XBAND. Your XBAND had to download patch and update code from the XBAND service onto itself which would it would then run to force a game to be able to be played multiplayer over a phone line. The service isn't up anymore, and therefore you can't obtain the patch code for the games. Even if your modem had some patch code stored on it back in the day, the XBAND's storage is battery-backed, and that battery, if original, is now over two decades old. The chances of that data being intact are pretty much nil.

I'd also venture a guess that even if you were to somehow successfully convince the XBAND to dial an opponent (and your opponent's XBAND to wait for your call), got patch code running, etc... you'd still be faced with the same challenges of finding a working, stable analog phone connection that NetLink players struggle with. Those challenges might even be worse, as the technology is older.
I have my Saturns, I have some of my games, I have a RasPi. Gotta put all this stuff together!
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