Imagine a time when internet access meant using an analogue modem to dial a phone number in order to connect to the internet at speeds of up 7 kilobytes a second! Now imagine trying to play online games such as Doom, Duke Nukem 3D, Quake, Euro 96, and even Bridge, over that connection.



Our guests this week, Phil and Stu Ashby, helped to create and run Wireplay, a dial-up based online gaming service from BT (yes, the telephone company) in the mid-nineties. We go on some really deep tangents on the workings of modems, why just enabling anonymous dial-up internet access may spark some questions, and the challenges of keeping latency in online gaming at a (for the time) remarkable 100ms over dial-up. There’s also a discussion of how having Windows Servers in your backend can be somewhat painful.



Do you remember using Wireplay, or a similar service? We’d love to hear from you, so please send us a note to [email protected], or why not come join the discussion on our Discord server.



If you liked this episode or any of our content, we’d greatly appreciate any little bit of support you can throw our way over at our Ko-Fi page.



Affiliate Promotion




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Episode Links




Do you remember Wireplay? How BT helped to pioneer online gaming around the world – BT via Archive.org



Wireplay: creating the first online gaming platform in the UK – Phil Ashby on Dev.to



Wireplay calling – hello 1996! – Ashbysoft



Half-Life: 25th Anniversary Documentary – Valve on YouTube



Wireplay invades Brisbane – AusGamers – Adam Williams on YouTube




Chapter Times




00:00:04: Introductions



00:05:00: BT Primer



00:10:07: Internet in the 90s



00:16:58: The Rise of Multiplayer Games



00:29:14: The Birth of Wireplay



00:53:22: The Incident 



01:04:08: Windows Servers In The Backend 



01:12:06: Half Life



01:22:51: The Aftermath



01:36:43: Museum Pieces



01:41:23: Wrapping Up




Credits



Intro and outro theme: Ace of Clubs by RoccoW

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