VOGONS


First post, by b0by007

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Hello people.
I read some time ago about a ms-dos game that had 4 player multiplayer with null serial cable conection, like in this picture:

vectra retro null cable.jpg
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vectra retro null cable.jpg
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4 players direct serial null modem
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Public domain

The 2 middle computers act as passthrough, having both serial com ports ocupied, so ps/2 ports were needed for mouse.
And the game would need 16 mb ram for this multiplayer, but 8 mb for single player.
I though for a long time it was about warcraft 2.
But, now that I aquired some 486 with ps/2 ports, and wanted to try this, I cant find this information anymore.
Warcaft 2 claims in the manual that has only 2 players in null cable direct conection.
So my question is this: Does anyone knows about such game?
Did I read it on some false game advertising, or was that on some early revision, like youtuber Tech Tangets discovered about doom v 1.1 having multimonitor gameplay?
Or (a very strong posibility), was I drunk back then (I play sometimes in that state of mind) and I missread and scrambled the translation from warcraft 2 manual? (english is not my native language)

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Reply 2 of 4, by lolo799

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You can find some utilities to play Doom and other games (heretic, hexen) with 3 or 4 machines connected via null modem cables at https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/utils/serial/

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Reply 3 of 4, by CODOR

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lolo799 wrote on 2023-12-18, 22:37:

You can find some utilities to play Doom and other games (heretic, hexen) with 3 or 4 machines connected via null modem cables at https://www.doomworld.com/idgames/utils/serial/

I remember using JServe02 listed there to get 4-player Doom working in the mid-1990s. A friend and I each had 2 phone lines and 2 modems but it looks like it supports null-modem cables, too.

Reply 4 of 4, by Jo22

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Some network software of the early 90s did indeed support chained serial connections.
I remember Kirschbaum Link and the more advanced version version, Kirschbaum Netz (based on Little Big LAN aka the $25 network or the $75 network).

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