Genesis AT&T Edge16 Modem

How rare are these things? I have one, but not entirely sure if it works. Don't really want to tinker with it too much if its a super hard to find item.

 

VERY VERY hard to find. Pics with name on piece of paper please.

 

Here you go. Its not in pristine shape but its all there.

 

You know youve got something very rare when I havent even heard about it, let alone seen one. Thats incredible

 

Here are a few more pictures. If i power up the genesis model 2 with it plugged in with or without a game the Power and Card LED indicators on the front will light up but it acts almost as if i don't even have an AV cable connected to the TV, nothing really happens on the TV. Unsure if its looking for a specific game to be plugged into it before booting or if there is truly something wrong with it.
I'm a bit hesitant to take it apart honestly. If by ANY chance someone has one of these and can chime in, please do. id love to hear if i'm just overlooking something.

 

Oh. My. Freakin'. GAWD! I can't believe you actually own an AT&T Edge 16 modem! I noticed from images that Ballz 3D, Virtua Racing, and some boxing game were going to be optimized for this thing.

 

I did some digging and Ballz DOES support the modem for sure. If you open the game in an emulator like exodus and watch the VDP Ram for the graphics it loads on the title screen it does load some graphics for edge 16 modem options on the main menu, but im guessing if the modem isnt present you obviously dont get the option to select this. I'm very curious if Virtua racing has something like this but, i havn't checked just yet and i'm not sure Exodus emulator supports emulating the SVP chip thats in virtua racing.

Also not to mention if you check the ballz manual it has instructions on how it works with the edge16 modem oddly enough.

 

If the Edge 16 service did come to fruition, I imagine that playing Ballz 3D or Virtua Racing across the phone lines against other people would have been an experience.

 

That makes sense - Ballz was written by PF Magic, who also designed that modem. It was probably the title they were using for testing it during development.

 

Wow, so how did you get it? I'm sure it has a nice story about it

and does it has a power socket in the back? Looks like so...maybe that's why it's not working, you need a power adaptor.

 

I really wish there was a super cool story on this but, there isnt. I snagged it from a guy on ebay that i guess didnt know what he had... I peppered him with questions but never got any response.

edit: got a response finally. the guy i purchased this from, won an auction to a storage unit that contained what looked like a video game collection and this modem was a part of it.

I knew OF the device, but thought since the one i saw online from Joe Santulli from digital press video games was numbered unit #688 that there had to be at least a few of these floating around. The modem i have is marked unit #523 with what appears to be earlier firmware from 9.30.94 while the one Joe Santulli is shown in a few pictures holding has firmware from 11.2.94.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/retronick/7081107969/in/photostream/

In regards to the connections. VERY possible it needs a power supply. It looks a bit weird on the back as i have what appears to be a PS/2 style port for a keyboard which is shown in a lot of the promo posters, an audio Jack for headphones/microphone is my guess and then the RJ11 port and another port similar to the audio jack but looks to be slightly smaller. This COULD be a power jack but not sure. It would make sense that the genesis cart port might not have enough power i guess to power this thing up entirely.

Edit: Now that i think about it, the Xband modem didn't need its own power supply and had an ASIC and modem in a cartridge form. Its possible maybe this thing needs some looking at.

If anyone has any ideas please let me know. Id love to see this thing working with a phone line simulator here and show some videos of it atleast being able to access the modem menus in some of the supported games.

 

Ok, so small update here. I did manage to get ahold of somone that had worked on the modems. It definitely had its own power supply. Rating/specs are un-know however. I'm pretty sure this is all its missing more or less... It should work as as pass through device unless the game queries for the hardware and attempts to utilize it.

Also according to the guy i spoke with, only a handfull were ever given to EA when ballz was in development. They had also a small handfull in the lab at pf magic but otherwise there are no known others to exist. These are all gone from what i understand as well.

The numbers written on mine and on the one that is shown for Joe Santulli apparently (523 and 688) are not indicating there were that many modems in existence. So all in all, i think we can assume there were probably less than 20 of these things out there. I believe there might be close to this many just due to the fact that another game that isnt even listed or shown to have been supported, has code in it and i assume they had to have had a couple modems for development purposes to even make this work.

I am not even sure that the game i'm talking about is entirely Edge16 Compatible but it is a game that was published at the time by a company that was listed as having a game in development and working with the Edge16 modem. Ive confirmed a hidden modem menu option in the title screen for it as well by looking at the VDP Ram and seeing the modem text listed. It is another fighting game as well.

 

Thanks for sharing...wow, just wow :'D

 

I'm going to try to figure out what kind of power supply it needs and hope that I can boot this thing with the Ballz game and see what it does. Ultimately I'd like to maybe bring it to classic game fest convention locally next year and show it off and let people take a look at it. I feel like it should be something people can check out and not be hidden behind glass in some private collection.

 

Oh I have no plans to sell it. I know it's an important piece of genesis history.

 

What fighter game are you talking about?

 

wow this is amazing.

 

Brutal paws of fury by GameTEK is the other. GameTek, PF Magic, Sega, US Gold were listed as companies that had working titles that were working with the modem as per a magazine article i saw online recently. There might be more games, i just havnt had time to look. EA games was mentioned as a company that was looking into making their games compatible with the modem and they had a few modems when Ballz was being developed. It wouldnt suprise me if any EA Games released around 8/94 to 12/94 or even early 95 might have code as well....

If anyone is interested in digging through games around this time from those companies to seeif modem support is included, here are the ones listed as looking INTO making their games compatible

Microprose
Spectrum Holobyte
Crystal Dynamics
Acclaim
EA

Also the ones above i listed (pf magic, sega, gametek, us gold) were listed as having games that worked with the modem. i havnt looked beyond pf magic and gametek just yet and havnt exhausted looking at all the titles they made that were released around the end of 94 early 95 to see.

I included the snapshots of what i found in the exodus emulator when looking at the VDP Ram.

 

Sweet finds, dude!
So, have you checked Virtua Racing's VRAM for anything that has anything to do with the Edge 16 modem, or did they remove it when that game went to market.