I do believe somebody called ‘shens’ on my statement saying that there was a modem for the Atari VCS that allowed you to download games to your system. Well, just to silence the haters, here it is. They also make mention of this little knowledge-bomb that was in doubt:
Even though the GameLine died, the investors and founding members of CVC went on to start a new company that would continue to use the technological infastructure they had built. The company, called Quantum Computer Services was created by Steve Case, among others. This company created a service called Quantum Link which linked together Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 users offering many of the expanded services originally envisioned for GameLine. Quantum Computer Services eventually changed its name to America Online in October of 1991. Though the company still (technically) exists, support for the Gameline does not.
It’s an interesting read, and the earliest example of trying to create an online gaming experience for console users. Just think, if it wasn’t for this, the X-Band modems, or The Sega Channel, we might not have the online connectivity we enjoy with modern consoles.
So, what’s the lesson here? Simple;
5 Comments
So was “The Earth Dies Screaming” a gameline only game, or something you can get on a cart?
Dunno. I’ll leave that one to the Atari nuts among us… namely Zoyx and Madaracs.
Pretty slick to see items made way ahead of their time. I wonder if you can snyhtesize the gameline server & have a really complicated cuttle cart setup.
I vaguely remember seeing advertisement or articles for this back in the day. Here is an Atari Age forum thread with more informative links. Neat how the founders of this, eventually went on to form AOL.
Have I done a show n tell of my SuperCharger for the VCS? It’s cool.
I am impressed but I had no knowledge of this. Tom will have to retract his “Shenanigans” statement he made in the ‘cast. 😉