I'm not sure this passes the sniff test. There's a few things that seem super off about it. Why would someone make a game that requires the internet in 1987? I wasn't able to get dialup service...
I'm not sure this passes the sniff test. There's a few things that seem super off about it. Why would someone make a game that requires the internet in 1987? I wasn't able to get dialup service until the mid 90's, in Vancouver, a fairly modern high tech city with a lot of ammenities. I'd imagine in Soviet Russia internet access would be incredibly rare at that point. And then, why ethernet? Who would have a LAN in those days? And then, 10-BASE-T ethernet wasn't around until 1990, before that they were using coax cable. And then, the adapter they're using is a console cable for cisco routers, maybe the powered one is a balun. What are the odds that the pin assignment is the same? Gotta be dozens of combinations of those pins. And then, what are the odds that they found a commercial from 1987 for an unreleased game?
Yeah, I'm not quite sure I buy it either TBH. I even spent the last 45 min digging around on youtube looking for the commercial they showed, but I couldn't find it. Which begs the question, if it...
Yeah, I'm not quite sure I buy it either TBH. I even spent the last 45 min digging around on youtube looking for the commercial they showed, but I couldn't find it. Which begs the question, if it was genuine and already publicly available, why not link to it? Why not mention the advertising company's name?
I'm hoping this really is some forgotten bit of gaming history they uncovered and not some viral marketing attempt for a new game they recently developed, because that would be a pretty shitty thing to do, IMO... but I wouldn't put it past Arin to do that. I signed up for the "Soviet Jump Game" beta regardless though... so hopefully I get into the discord and can do a bit more digging. I will update if I do.
Now that I've slept on this, I'm pretty much convinced it can't be real. There has never been an ethernet standard that uses a DB9 connector, and anything that could be adapted to it wouldn't...
Exemplary
Now that I've slept on this, I'm pretty much convinced it can't be real. There has never been an ethernet standard that uses a DB9 connector, and anything that could be adapted to it wouldn't exist at the time the game was made.
The oldest ethernet standard that would be reverse compatible with modern ethernet was 10-BASE-T, which wasn't a standard until late 1990. There was ethernet before that, 10BASE5, 10BASE2, etc, but those were two-pin coaxial cables. There was a standard that used 15 pins, AUI, which could be interfaced with coax. It was the first widely used form of ethernet over twisted pair, but the signalling was incompatible with modern ethernet.
Ignoring the unavailability of internet at the time, ignoring the fact anything that did use internet at the time would contain a modem and interface over a phone jack, ignoring the sheer unlikelihood of matching up the pinout of 4 pins in a 9 pin connector, ignoring the strange requirement for it to be powered, this is simply not possible given that the 802.3i standard wouldn't exist until Sept 1990.
I think what happened here is when they were coming up with this idea, they looked at old modems, saw that they connect over a serial port, and that serial port goes to a modem, then out through a phone line. They compared that to modern cablemodems and came to the assumption that the serial port was somehow speaking ethernet instead of speaking the Hayes command set over rs232. That's a big oversight. Nothing from 1987 can possibly interface with a modern gigabit ethernet card.
For context, here are the relevant parts from the previous two episodes: https://youtu.be/nB12ILnm5eM?t=428 https://youtu.be/CpVaMFQgGoQ?t=1407 The short clip shown around 8:20 looks way beyond...
The short clip shown around 8:20 looks way beyond what NES hardware is capable of, so I think this is just going to turn out to be promotion for some retro-style platformer.
edit: The game's developer is called Thom Glunt, he shared the game's boxart on Twitter. Also, a (subtitled) reaction video from a Russian YouTuber.
Looks like they released a trailer for this. It looks like a pretty enjoyable platformer, but this 100% confirms that the backstory was a lie. None of this would be possible on famicom hardware.
I'm not sure this passes the sniff test. There's a few things that seem super off about it. Why would someone make a game that requires the internet in 1987? I wasn't able to get dialup service until the mid 90's, in Vancouver, a fairly modern high tech city with a lot of ammenities. I'd imagine in Soviet Russia internet access would be incredibly rare at that point. And then, why ethernet? Who would have a LAN in those days? And then, 10-BASE-T ethernet wasn't around until 1990, before that they were using coax cable. And then, the adapter they're using is a console cable for cisco routers, maybe the powered one is a balun. What are the odds that the pin assignment is the same? Gotta be dozens of combinations of those pins. And then, what are the odds that they found a commercial from 1987 for an unreleased game?
This just isn't adding up.
Yeah, I'm not quite sure I buy it either TBH. I even spent the last 45 min digging around on youtube looking for the commercial they showed, but I couldn't find it. Which begs the question, if it was genuine and already publicly available, why not link to it? Why not mention the advertising company's name?
I'm hoping this really is some forgotten bit of gaming history they uncovered and not some viral marketing attempt for a new game they recently developed, because that would be a pretty shitty thing to do, IMO... but I wouldn't put it past Arin to do that. I signed up for the "Soviet Jump Game" beta regardless though... so hopefully I get into the discord and can do a bit more digging. I will update if I do.
Now that I've slept on this, I'm pretty much convinced it can't be real. There has never been an ethernet standard that uses a DB9 connector, and anything that could be adapted to it wouldn't exist at the time the game was made.
The oldest ethernet standard that would be reverse compatible with modern ethernet was 10-BASE-T, which wasn't a standard until late 1990. There was ethernet before that, 10BASE5, 10BASE2, etc, but those were two-pin coaxial cables. There was a standard that used 15 pins, AUI, which could be interfaced with coax. It was the first widely used form of ethernet over twisted pair, but the signalling was incompatible with modern ethernet.
Ignoring the unavailability of internet at the time, ignoring the fact anything that did use internet at the time would contain a modem and interface over a phone jack, ignoring the sheer unlikelihood of matching up the pinout of 4 pins in a 9 pin connector, ignoring the strange requirement for it to be powered, this is simply not possible given that the 802.3i standard wouldn't exist until Sept 1990.
I think what happened here is when they were coming up with this idea, they looked at old modems, saw that they connect over a serial port, and that serial port goes to a modem, then out through a phone line. They compared that to modern cablemodems and came to the assumption that the serial port was somehow speaking ethernet instead of speaking the Hayes command set over rs232. That's a big oversight. Nothing from 1987 can possibly interface with a modern gigabit ethernet card.
For context, here are the relevant parts from the previous two episodes: https://youtu.be/nB12ILnm5eM?t=428 https://youtu.be/CpVaMFQgGoQ?t=1407
The short clip shown around 8:20 looks way beyond what NES hardware is capable of, so I think this is just going to turn out to be promotion for some retro-style platformer.
edit: The game's developer is called Thom Glunt, he shared the game's boxart on Twitter. Also, a (subtitled) reaction video from a Russian YouTuber.
Looks like they released a trailer for this.
It looks like a pretty enjoyable platformer, but this 100% confirms that the backstory was a lie. None of this would be possible on famicom hardware.