An item from the past

A while back, during the mid -90s, there was a company called Catapult who made a hardware and software game based product called XBAND. A friend worked there and what they tried to do was provide means for people to play console games, specifically Nintendo and Sega Dreamcast, against others online. Of course, this is before the Internet so you used phone line to call their servers and you choose an opponent then played the game.

What is shown above is the modem that you plug in to the console then plug the game above it. Then you plug in the phone line to the side of the modem.

Then you can choose who is online at that time and played whatever game you wanted against the person.

I was lucky enough to be in their alpha program, thanks to my friend. I was the only person outside the company who had the modem and played against the catapult people. I had a great time and for a while, I was doing well on NBA Jam. When they went live, I stopped playing because I had to pay for it. I wasn’t that much in to playing my Sega. I still have the Dreamcast somewhere, one of my cousins has it, I think. Shortly after, the Internet grew and the games went on the Internet to play heads up. So, Catapult went under a few years later.

Anyways, I found the XBAND modem the other day so I thought I would reminisce about the old days. Here is an old video of XBAND on YouTube.