I got this message from the Sega Netlink grapevine:
*As all of you know, the Xband service was discontinued. But there is a person who claims he knows how to get the modems to work again. He says he needs help. Maybe there are some of you out there that can. Here is his message.
I believe Paul accidentally copied the wrong email when he sent out that
last message.
Here is the message I sent him that contains current plans for work on the
X-Band, and how people can help.
Paul wrote:
>… About three or four others have emailed
>me about bringing back the X-Band, so maybe if I hear
>back from you with your ideas on how that can be done,
>I’ll send out the email to the others and we can go
>from there. Hopefully we can get this off the ground …
Well, I recently posted my ideas for bringing the X-Band back to life:
http://board.acmlm.org/thread.php?id=14914
So that is probably good to read through.
Since that is a forum for hacking/reverse-engineering, I focussed mainly on
the technical software and hardware ways people can help. If it is
possible, I would really like help here.
However, even those interested in reviving the X-band that don’t have any
technical expertise … there are still very very important ways they can
help.
#1 - I have yet to find an X-Band with the memory still working (the
batteries have died). I have found one or two people claiming that their
X-Band memory still works though. So it might be possible to find one (or
someone who could loan it to us). Why you may ask?
I want to get the patch information out of the memory and save it, before we
lose it forever!
This information was originally downloaded from the service, so once it is
gone now, it is final.
If you and/or your friends can search around, asking questions and maybe
even emailing X-Banders … we may be able to get a copy of this covetted
info before it’s lost for good.
Okay, with that info, stuff gets easier … but there will still be a lot of
work. And, it is still possible without that info, so don’t get
disheartenned. The second way people can help non-technically:
#2 - The people who made this device had to put lots of hard and personal
work into this. They also sound like they were fairly close knit and
enjoyed the working environment. For this reason, they too were very sad to
see it shut down. It’s hard to get ahold of them, but when you do, they are
almost always willing to help or at least referr you to someone that can.
So:
Search copies of old websites with archive.org as well as just googling
around to find as much employee contact info as possible. Keep emailing
around to get as many helpful contacts as possible. Since the system is
dead now, they may be willing to share code and other useful information
(one contact I found did share a little).
Anyone can help with this, and the usefulness of this cannot be stressed
enough.
Let me know if the plans sound feasible to you, and if you can help,
-kevin…
(neviksti)
P.S. I am also interested in buying more X-Bands for testing purposes. If
you have extras (or know people that want to get rid of theirs), I would
like to buy their SNES X-Bands (not genesis, I am focussing on the SNES for
now). Thanks*