XBAND

[MoeThirteen]

A guy in another forum I'm in posted he found a peripheral used to go online with the SNES and when he linked to the Wiki I noticed something in the "Service Issues" section that may intrigue some of you.

I never remember anything like this for the SNES, but I do remember SEGA had a channel through my cable company for a while.

Link to the wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XBAND

[RTF]

Sega Channel was a whole different animal.  While Xband was basically Xbox Live's great-granddaddy, a BBS-type deal with multiplayer, messaging, etc. Sega Channel was just an avenue to download games to your console via cable broadcast.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sega_Channel

Both ideas were hopelessly before their time, and subsumed once the Internet took over.

[MoeThirteen]

So basically the SEGA channel was what you get in hotels now. Neat for the SEGA fans of the time, but yeah playing over the internet killed both.

[ApprenticePhreak]

No kidding Sega Channel was ahead of its time. My friend had it back when we were in 6th grade. We would spend HOURS going through all the games that seemed like a vast and infinite space to beheld by two 11 year old. When I first heard of the XBAND as a kid it totally blew my mind. Granted my parents wouldn't get it for me, but I begged for it a load after I saw your high scores would be published in Game Pro if you nailed 'em high enough.

I miss my youth.

[MattGSX]

Nintendo had their own, similar system, as well, but it was only available in Japan through the Famicom modem.

[xband411]

The Xband was great.  The competition was fierce both locally in my city and nationwide.

The best thing was that we were able to bum free long distance calling off of Catapult (the company that made Xband).  When you connected to the service, it would dial a 1-800 number.  Then, the modem would enter a 15 digit number to validate itself.  We'd record the number on VHS, translate the beeps into their corresponding numbers via hacked Skytel voicemail boxes, and call our friends all over the country on Catapult's dime.  I really hope that didn't add to the company's demise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwYb0Gdq4iI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avOT8lk8K10

[RTF]

The Xband was great.  The competition was fierce both locally in my city and nationwide.

The best thing was that we were able to bum free long distance calling off of Catapult (the company that made Xband).  When you connected to the service, it would dial a 1-800 number.  Then, the modem would enter a 15 digit number to validate itself.  We'd record the number on VHS, translate the beeps into their corresponding numbers via hacked Skytel voicemail boxes, and call our friends all over the country on Catapult's dime.  I really hope that didn't add to the company's demise.

Hah, that is wild!  I totally wanted one of these back then, but I never imagined they'd have been useful for phreaking purposes.