Talk:XBAND

Card Reader

What is the card reader on the x-band used for? It can be seen on the PCB scans on this page, http://www.snescentral.com/article.php?id=0067 (on the "PCB back" side scan). Is that for credit cards, telephone cards, xband membership cards, or something else? Was it actually used? And if yes, was it required to insert a card, or was it optional and worked with & without one?

Also on the "PCB back" scan, there is a switch labeled SW1 in upper-left. What is that for? 95.118.103.198 (talk) 23:46, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

• It was for buying prepaid connection cards that were offered for gamers who didn't want to do the monthly subscription with a credit card (for whatever reason). They also promoted them as a tool for for parents who wanted to limit their kids use of the system as I recall. BcRIPster (talk) 20:20, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Hacking

Will someone please re-write or provide a citation for the bit on hacking?

However, among the XBANDers there was suspicion that the real reasons for this were the growing number of problems that could not be fixed with their available resources. The most costly of these problems was the free long distance hack. It wasn't actually hacking into anything but through an understanding of telecommunications, someone, somewhere, discovered that with the sounds and other noises the modem used to connect, one could utilize it, (if applied correctly) and force XBAND to get charged for your long distance bill, this information spread like wildfire. There was another company at the time, called SkyTel, that was having similar problems with XBANDers and their own customers, though the details of this are unclear.

This is a mess. It's hacking, but it wasn't hacking? The modem makes sounds and other noises (in addition to "sounds")? And to top it all off, it's still not clear just what the "hack" was.

In response to InShanee's edit to XBAND and ensueing personal message to myself......

I did not add any copyrighted material whatsoever, and to rename an entire section 'cult following' is an opinion and not a fact, I stated that when I originally restored the title. I will grant you that "In the Years Since Then" is a bit off the top for a title, but "cult following" is an opinion, and as you know against wikipedia's policy for unbiased entries.
Furthermore, sir, if you want to call my information "unverifiable" then 90% of the entire entry should be scrapped, I doubt you were on the service so where do you think the information is coming from? I could be just as hard nosed as you seem to be on "verifiable sources", shall we then reduce XBAND to a single paragraph, or two?
Also, since Wikipedia states that just because any generic website quotes something does not make it a reliable source, if you check the websites referenced they are merely former videogamers with a domain name and some JPEGs. Shall I make a website and then quote from myself, unbeknownst to anyone else? How do you know one of those websites is not my own?

Also, when you reverted to the previous form, you did not even check for grammar and spelling.

As an ending note, it just stands to reason that if you're going to scratch my entry on the activity of ex-XBANDers in the years since then, then the entire paragraph should be omitted as well, since "cult-following" is no more or less verifiable, being that the websites which we gathered to have all disappeared. But if I can conjure a link to one, would that make it well enough for you to leave it alone?
Just to clear up any further minor confusion, I am the originator of the XBAND entry when I lived in another state with a different ISP.

Retrieved from "http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Talk:XBAND"

• First of all, I'd suggest you read the wikipedia policies on text ownership. Just because you started an article in no way means that you have more say on its content than anyone else. Now, as for the text I've removed (again), first of all, it is POV. You're obviously a fan of the service, and the problem is, you're writing from a fan's perspective. As an encyclopedia, we can't judge or glorify anything that we write about. We can only present the facts as we can verifiy them. And yes, if you believe that there's some other text in the article that's unverifiable, then please mention it here, and that may be removed as well. The fact is, I'm not taking info just from websites here. I'm a bit of a packrat, and I have several videogame magazines from the XBAND era that back up the vast majority of the remaining information in this article. Besides, even if you put up your own website claiming that XBANDs printed out $100 bills during a tournament, that's still only one source. The websites that do exist about XBAND for the most part reiterate the same information, which helps to add to its credibility. As for the "cult following" section, the user who pared it down did so to preserve only what IS verifiable in an encyclopedic format. "Cult following" is about the best phrase I can think of to describe the XBAND's continued popularity (as nostalgia, of course), which IS verifiable by virtue of its online presence. As for what individual gamers have done following XBAND's closing, none of it can be proven to any significant degree. Additionally, "disbanded", while being a clever title, is too 'dramatic' and not immediatly informative enough for the format we're going for. If you have further concerns, I hope you will take them up here before reverting again. --InShaneee 03:56, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

Here's how I see it, the article you had wasn't encyclapedic, it contained an opening paragraph that barely even mentioned the service, also headings like "The Xpierence" and what have you were inapropriate, take a look at your original revision and then look around Wikipedia you don't see any other articles written in that tone (or at least not many) You may think that we "stole" this article away from you but that's not true, in my edits I know I based it largely off of the facts you presented, what we did was cut off all the fluff, if you read your original revision and then look at ours it baisicly states the same thing. What the article now doesn't contain is a bias twoards the Xband. When you edit an article in Wikipedia it is a living beast, most of us don't expect that all of our edits in a years time will be thier, what we do expect though is for people to take our ideas and expand on them to make a feature worthy article. That's the fun of wikipedia Deathawk 17:28, 20 December 2005 (UTC)

• No no no guys, I don't think it's mine at all just because I started it. The only reason I mentioned it as I said was to clear up any minor confusion. I thought my wording of everything speaking as an authority on the subject would sound pretty strange were I not the sole person who wrote the article from nothing....and yes, my original embarkment on this was pretty bad and unencyclopedic, especially my original opening paragraph if any of you go back and see it.

Since I'm glad we can talk about it though.....

InShanee....I'm still looking for where I added some kind of copyrighted info. Also why that opening paragraph describing the technology and the gaming trends of the mid-90s was removed. It sounds pretty relevant to me, someone looking back at the mid-90's now would not realize that if someone wanted diverse human competition, the arcades were the ONLY places to go, 'online' gaming was unheard of except in "l33t" circles. I *can* pull up an old website link containing an interview with one of the programmers who mentioned that he believes the peak number of subscribers was around 7,000.
Also dude, you removed and reworded my information on the whole "connect" and "long distance" playing charges. The way you reworded it is incorrect but most importantly, that's totally verifiable, I know where you got it from man, so at least check that site again. The way I had it was accurate to the source of the info (the aformentioned site)....I'm not just pulling that from memories of old credit card statements.

Deathhawk....the reason why I titled it "Xperience" was based on the XBAND's instruction book, along with the daily news articles. It was always a play on words when something started with an "ex-" it was typed Xperience, Xtra, Xtreme, Xemption etc... But if you think it's just sloppy I understand. I've got to keep in mind what everyone else out there would think upon reading it.

If it's ok with the rest of you, I would vote for the entire cult-following entry removed, because it's not verifiable at all...The few hundred of us were always private about our message boards and sites, so thus, no search engine submissions, only word of mouth. That kept out all the flim-flam, fakes, impostors, and generic weirdos that internet traffic will direct to websites. The only way I know now that people still hold onto the names is because I know who they are and where they still talk and battle it out on emulators.
So since it takes verification to deem something worthy of an entry, let's remove it. Not to mention what's left of the article is way too short to make note of. Now if this article was written 5 years ago, oh boy, I could throw up sites left and right. This dude's, that dude's...just like I even wrote about the former employee buying xband.com. But none of it can be verified, it's all vanished.

• After reading this whole silly fight, I want to put in my two bits. For what it's worth, I thought the "cult/since then" entry was a bit to fan-boyish, although I didn't strike it myself because I think there does need to be some information about the after life of this product fan-base since it seems to be so persistant. As for my credentials on commenting with this entry, I personally worked with Catapult's marketing team while they were trying to figure out their web presence, as well as speaking with some of the other staff from time to time. They ran alot of their first web material through the video game magazine I published. We also were presented to members as the official non-support e-mail address to contact with gaming questions. We were regulary kept informed on what was going on in the company even up till the very end as the company was sold off, etc... So the additions I have made to this article are from personal experience with the company. --- By the way, for the record, there is always "archive.org" as a link reference to old sites that no longer exist, for instance, the ex-employee who bought the domain and hosted a short lived site can be found here. bcRIPster 17:43, 24 December 2005 (MST)

Fair use rationale for Image:X-band logo.gif

Image:X-band logo.gif is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot 11:25, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Corrections & thoughts

I was an avid XBAND user back in the day, and there are a few things that need clearing up. First of all, the Legend of Zelda wasn't the only cartridge that would activate the hidden maze game -- basically, any unsupported SNES cart would do it. I usually used Super Mario World. This is, of course, original research, and I'm not dedicated enough to try and find backup of this anywhere on the web. But if anyone CAN find it, it would be nice.
Secondly, the email service actually included an internet email address, which I believe was username@xband.com. There was a character limit, and no attachments or HTML was supported, but there was basic text email support. I used it pretty frequently before I had an internet connection. Again, original research, but if someone wants to look this stuff up, it'll help the accuracy of the article.
(dreamKnight on XBAND)66.25.38.248 (talk) 20:00, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There are some webpages stating that the 'Super Mario World' cartridge would activate a chat function - not the secret maze game. --2.241.51.109 (talk) 02:27, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

My xband e-mail was the primary way that I'd send e-mail then because I didn't have a computer in 1995. While there was a character limit in sending mail, if you received a long mail, it would get broken up across multiple messages. Looks like "The Story Of XBAND" documentary talks about these things. Billatq (talk) 14:29, 2 August 2019 (UTC)

Dudemeister1234

I created this article and, when I checked it out again, I was amazed to see how much it had been added to! Thank you so much for expanding this article. I am very interested in the XBAND modem and f anybody has a working system, please tell me on my talk page. Send me some video of it in action to my email address, dudemeister1234@gmail.com. If you are wiling to sell it, name your price! We'll figure out something.----

I'd say just hit the Facebook page for now, that seems to be the hub of what's happening in the world of XBand from what I can tell. BcRIPster (talk) 15:16, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

Copyedit

--^Despay_re (^tal_k) 17:41, 3 March 2012 (UTC)

Playing games online being new comment removal

So, I think it's probably ok to remove this as POV, but I don't think the reason stated by the editor that removed it really stands. The point is valid. On-line gaming in the living room was pretty much unheard of. PC games with on-line play were more often than not limited to LAN play. I think the original statement is pretty accurate but probably needs some context to back it up. (fwiw, I'm talking about this edit: "10:36, 6 November 2015‎ EVIL-MCDUCK . . (15,421 bytes) (-140)‎ . . (Playing games online was not a fiarly new idea at the time. ever heard of the PC ?)" ) BcRIPster (talk) 23:03, 6 November 2015 (UTC)

External links modified

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Articles in regards to the XBAND

Hi! If you guys are looking for articles in regards to the XBAND then let me know! I'm willing to find them in order to expand the article! KGRAMR (talk) 04:47, 7 May 2018 (UTC)

Sega Mega Net 2

I just found out that the Mega Net 2 released by Tectoy in Brazil was in fact the XBAND for the Mega Drive/Genesis. It would be interesting add this info in the article. CobraMJD (talk) 13:16, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

References

Reverse-engineering claims

I've stumbled across the SNES doom source code dump[1] today, and while browsing through it, I found an XBAND directory with some support files and a rom dump. The wiki page currently states that "With the exception of Weaponlord, Catapult had to individually reverse engineer each game's code (...)" - I have no solid proof, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's hardly true; Otherwise, why would a game developer have those files?

I don't have enough energy to dig through this, but maybe you do! ~Dominique 10:19, 11 June 2024 (UTC)

Demise section, Conexant role unclear?

This section include the sentence : "Catapult's second generation attempts were blocked by Conexant due to the increasing use of the Internet, an effect from the shift to the Information Age", but it's not specified what Conexant did exactly? Am i missing something? 2A01:CB1C:8C5:C600:BDA5:3788:9511:8882 (talk) 18:02, 20 August 2024 (UTC)