[Diablohead]

Damn I still remember reading about the Sega Channel being beta tested around america from an old megadrive magazine I use to own, the article made me want to have it over here and then out of no where nothing was said ever again, so it obviously flopped I thought :P

[Evil Cheese]

I can't imagine how you would get this to work on real hardware but it might work on Gens or Kega.

You'd need a means to convert the data into something the hardware understands.

One issue though is that the Sega Channel is a one-way connection - basically you can receive data, but not send (after all, it's just like a TV channel, because in fact it is that!).

Correct although there were plans to release a Sega Channel cartridge that could work on the Xband network. I don't know if that was ever released but it was in Sega's plans at one point. The cartridge would connect to Sega Channel via a cable line and to the xband network via a phone line.

This post has been edited by Evil Cheese: 22 September 2009 - 03:02 PM

[Overlord]

Damn I still remember reading about the Sega Channel being beta tested around america from an old megadrive magazine I use to own, the article made me want to have it over here and then out of no where nothing was said ever again, so it obviously flopped I thought :P

I honestly thought it made it over here, and remember idly wanting it but knowing my parents would never go for a subscription. Guess it didn't...

EDIT: Fucking hell. I WAS right!

The service was also available in Canada through Shaw Cable, in some parts of the United Kingdom on certain cable services, in Chile on the defunct Metropolis Intercom cable company, in Argentina on a national TCI branch, Cablevisión TCI. and in Australia on Austar and the now defunct Galaxy.

http://www.cbronline.com/news/sega_channel_launched_in_uk

That link shows the company that operated it to be Flextech Plc. Their website is http://www.flextech.co.uk/ , and goes to a familiar and not surprising name for anyone who knows the UK cable industry... seems it started out with the name it has today, renamed to Flextech after a buyout by the newly formed Telewest, then to the current name after the rebranding exercise after the buyouts that have made it what it is now. Though I'm surprised NTL had no involvement with the Sega Channel...

[moonmaster1]

I'm no stranger to virgin media. especially with their influence here in the states.

Time warner *ted turner's baby* did sega channel over here in new york. I highly doubt they are willing to give up their sega archives should they have them. I figure the server information must have run off a hard driver or cd. 50 roms and extras can't be anymore than 1XX MB and even then they are streaming it.

[Diablohead]

Damn I still remember reading about the Sega Channel being beta tested around america from an old megadrive magazine I use to own, the article made me want to have it over here and then out of no where nothing was said ever again, so it obviously flopped I thought :P

I honestly thought it made it over here, and remember idly wanting it but knowing my parents would never go for a subscription. Guess it didn't...

EDIT: Fucking hell. I WAS right!

The service was also available in Canada through Shaw Cable, in some parts of the United Kingdom on certain cable services, in Chile on the defunct Metropolis Intercom cable company, in Argentina on a national TCI branch, Cablevisión TCI. and in Australia on Austar and the now defunct Galaxy.

http://www.cbronline.com/news/sega_channel_launched_in_uk

That link shows the company that operated it to be Flextech Plc. Their website is http://www.flextech.co.uk/ , and goes to a familiar and not surprising name for anyone who knows the UK cable industry... seems it started out with the name it has today, renamed to Flextech after a buyout by the newly formed Telewest, then to the current name after the rebranding exercise after the buyouts that have made it what it is now. Though I'm surprised NTL had no involvement with the Sega Channel...

I don't think we had cable tv until late into the MD live so it's probably why I never heard of it appearing in the UK myself, would have been cool instead of renting games from the local hop-in at the time.

[Dr. Mustache]

Wonder if it would be possibly to host some kind of fan-made games on demand service for the megadrive these days?
Although such a thing would probably be considered illegal >_>

This post has been edited by Dr. Mustache: 22 September 2009 - 04:56 PM

[Sik]

Fangames are illegal, but if they're brand new IPs then it shouldn't, really. The problem is who's going to provide the signal... If we're going that route it'd be much easier to try new hardware for the matter (e.g. a cartridge that allows Internet connection).

[moonmaster1]

Its just as illegal to host thousands of roms to other users who most likely sold their carts just to get fallout 3 or just get by, we do it anyways by distributed hacked versions of an ESA protected game and its just dust in the wind. Tells you how much they care.

Although if someone makes a cart that can detect and connect to these, rom servers. not only do we have our new sega channel, be we also have a way of preserving it through the internet, unlike the cable company which shoved our childhood in the closet for the saturn.

[Rika Chou]

I also still have my sega channel transcoder thing, just taking up space and gathering dust. Completely useless, but it only cost me around $10.

[moonmaster1]

Is that the same thing as the this cart or something different?



If its different, could you be able to send any pics?

[Rika Chou]

No, it looks kind of like this, but bigger:




I just don't feel like taking a picture right now.

Not sure if it even works anymore, it has vents on the top and I have nothing keeping cat hair and dust out of it.

[moonmaster1]

I think that might just be a cable box in that case, it probably has even less use than a sega channel does on real hardware.

If you can, would you be able to make a topic about this over at hidden palace? It won't let me register over there and I would like to get this out in the open.

[Rika Chou]

Not really a cable box, it's something that was kept at the cable company. I was told that it was likely used to decode the satellite signals.

[Oerg866]

OK, well.

From what I read and saw over at DevSter's website, it is possible to attatch an ISA bus and successfully operating a NE2000 network card. Furthermore, building some simple network adapter for the Sega CD-Connector on the righthand-side shouldn't be too big of a problem. The problem would be replacing current data receiving code with a TCP/IP stack and some other stuff.

By the way, after all, they made a 10mbit/s ethernet card for the roughly 7 years older Commodore 64 home computer, complete with webbrowser, IRC client and TCP/IP stack.

[Sik]

By the way, after all, they made a 10mbit/s ethernet card for the roughly 7 years older Commodore 64 home computer, complete with webbrowser, IRC client and TCP/IP stack.

Yeah, but they did that by putting a faster processor in the add-on and some extra memory if I recall correctly, and the 6502 told it what to do in a similar fashion to the 68k telling what to do to the VDP.

Actually, that would be a good idea, especially considering that the maximum speed of the normal I/O ports in serial mode is 4800 bps (parallel may be able to achieve more, but still the 68k would be too slow to provide much speed really). Improved router for the Mega Drive, anyone? We'd need something to make use of it though. Maybe a browser? Imagine posting on Retro from your Mega Drive. Try to get classier than that :P

I guess I'm going off-topic...