LodgeNet N64

[Calpis]

I've never taken a look inside or even played them but I've examined the units a bit. I don't mean that you guys have the stock N64s, I think that maybe "Lodgenet" does remotely, Lodgenet is afterall a inter-continental hotel entertainment provider :) Theres no way that theres a flash unit or anything inside one of those. Also there is no way that the machine is emulated (N64) which is what I originally suspected for SNES. I believe that once you buy the game you get switched over to a console playing that specific game. Instead of seeing a "Downloading..." screen you'll see a blank screen or waiting screen which after a while will switch to the game. ALSO there is the PAY (movie/game) selection button which you can switch to and from at any time. If the Lodgenet unit WAS playing the game, then perhaps it wouldn't like you switching to regular TV. Its simply not reasonable (economical) for the unit to download games, I'm positive it doesn't. Also the first time I encountered one of these Lodgenet machines was probably 6 years ago, well before the game industry opened their minds to emulation.

[Rosary]

I saw Paper Mario and Perfect Dark on Lodgenet in Texas when I was last there. Also, the controller plugs into the back of the TV (and not the wall) for whatever that's worth.

[ASSEMbler]

I called them once, it's all streamed data and not really any one piece of working hardware to ever see on ebay..

[A. Snow]

Since the company that makes these is known (which in my experience can be the hardest part) why don't you just email them? You would be suprised at the info you can get just by asking ppl. They will probably send you some sales brochures if you ask.

[abionic]

i got a lodgenet controller at the flea market, the guy had no idea what it was.. it looks like the standard n64 controller with some extra buttons (as seen in that pic) but also at the end of the cord, rather than an N64 controller connector, there's a telephone-style (db25?) connector.. weirdness.

[Calpis]

Laney flea?

[Greatsaintlouis]

I might do just that, A.Snow, as soon as I can find the time to compose a coherant email. I still need to talk with my supervisor or maintenence and ask about it, but I haven't had a breather - I was moving luggage for tour groups all day. :smt011 I did notice what looked like a LodgeNet instruction manual in the office closet, so maybe I'll take a look at that on my break tomorrow. And yes abionic, the controllers do end in a telephone connector.

Something that just popped into my mind the other day - I noticed a lot of the games that are supposed to be available are ones that are meant to have saved data - Mario 64, Waverace, Paper Mario, Perfect Dark, etc. I'm wondering if they go to the trouble of saving the game data in any form as you would on your home system, or maybe (in a bit of far-out speculation) the games themselves are modified in order to remove an arguably useless feature given the situation they are to be used in? Just an idea I thought I'd throw out.

[schnookums]

All this talk takes me way back to my early days (I must have been around 10, tops) We had stayed at a super fancyy hotel for a convention, and one of the room features was a video game setup, except that it allowed you to play colecovision games. (This being pre nintendo, at least in the us) I don't remember much about the setup, it seemed to be part of the pay per movies setup they also had, and I do vaguely remember that there was a fair amount of 'loading' time when you picked a game.

[Alien Workshop]

And yes abionic, the controllers do end in a telephone connector.

That might be an ethernet connection at the end of the controller.

[ASSEMbler]

no it's telephone RJ-11

[Purge]

when I saw one, I thought it looked more like a stnard lan cable (RJ-45) but I didnt have anything to measure it at the time or plug it into, perhaps we may be able to probe the unit since it uses a standard connector?

[Greatsaintlouis]

Assembler's right, the cable is definately the standard telephone RJ-11 cable.

[Greatsaintlouis]

Alright, the LodgeNet guy came in today to do some troubleshooting on part of the system, and I was able to ask him a few questions about the N64 system. He sadly didn't know too much about it, as he was just trained to fix problems and not much else, but this is what I did find out.

The guy said something about how the games were actually stored on a server computer running what he thought was Unix. I'd take a chance and guess it could also be FreeBSD, as that's what drives our LodgeNet terminal in the front desk office. He then went on to mention something about another location he services and how one of the 'Nintendo engines' was acting up - I got him to clairify to the point of finding out that it's some hardware device that works with the server, but that's it. :smt017 The only other thing of interest was that he remembered back when the system was new of having to come in every now and then with a CD and load games onto the server from it. So while it sounds like emulation, his mention of the 'hardware engine' makes me wonder if the games were stored in rom but processed on a variation of the N64 hardware?

I also asked about the possibility of buying busted controllers, old discs, or hardware from Lodgenet themselves, and he gave me the impression that it wouldn't be an option. So about the only way to ever get a hold of any of this stuff is on eBay or in a private trade, because I'm sure as hell not lifting one of the controllers from work - A) I don't want to run that risk and B), it would be useless to have just a controller. The only odd thing is that they have a notice on the controller that $30 will be added to your hotel bill if the device is removed from the room, so I don't see what the problem is with legitimately buying one, but whatever.

I'm not sure if anyone even cares, but I find this really fascinating... it's prolly just me tho.

[Alchy]

It's certainly not emulation. Aside from Nintendo being guaranteed to be unhappy about the notion on principle, they'd also not think it particularly cost-effective to write an emulator when they've got plenty of hardware.

This system is a bank of motherboards+ram, connected to a PC and a switching system, using the hotel's network of phone lines as the controller interface. Right?

[Greatsaintlouis]

Not really. I guess I'm not seeing where Nintendo would not be happy about emulation, seeing as they have recently been selling tons of emulated games for various systems (Famicom Mini, NES Classic, Zelda Collector's Disc, Wind Wanker Preorder Disc). Now they have problems with homebrew emulators because they are cocks, yes, but if they create it and make money off of it, all's well for them. (Anyone remember what the hell happened with Nintendo's attempt to patent the concept of an emulator?)

Anyways, as I have been trying to tell people here for a while, there is no hardware bank. At all. No motherboards, no N64 units, nothing. I would have seen some at work if there were, and what the LodgeNet tech said was that the game files are indeed stored on a Unix or FreeBSD-based computer. He also mentioned that 'Nintendo hardware engine' I wrote about as something that processes the game files when they are ordered - I don't know if it's a small black box, I don't know if it's a card in the PC, but it is not a bank of systems sitting idle or anything like that.

And the system DOES NOT run on the hotel's phone lines, the controller uses a RJ-11 telephone jack to plug into the back of the televisions in the room (which are all Zenith brand TVs, the model being "Concierge") which then hooks into the hotel's cable network.

Sorry if I sound snappy, it just seemed that the things you were questioning had already been explained very well by other posts in this thread.

[ASSEMbler]

It's certainly not emulation. Aside from Nintendo being guaranteed to be unhappy about the notion on principle, they'd also not think it particularly cost-effective to write an emulator when they've got plenty of hardware.

This system is a bank of motherboards+ram, connected to a PC and a switching system, using the hotel's network of phone lines as the controller interface. Right?

I took one apart once in a hotel.

It's a RJ-11 line that goes into a TV controller box.
I saw no nintendo chips inside, it was linked to a machine on remote. The game is probably sent to their hardware from satellite.
nintendo has done roms before on Satellaview, and even sold it's own rom carts. It has also done rom kiosks at lawsons.

I suspect new content is sent monthly by satellite to the rom storage.

The latency would be very long if it's running 40 floors to the basement. It MUST be n64 type hardware in a box somewhere.
It may be some sort of consolidated chip, as I did not want to remove the shielding from the set top box.

Get me a site link for them and I'll call them up.

[marko33]

http://www.lodgenet.com/contactindex.html
There you go.. the 188 number is for tech support/customer service

[Alchy]

I guess I'm not seeing where Nintendo would not be happy about emulation

Ok, tell me why Nintendo would create, from scratch, a custom N64 emulator and supply the accompanying expensive PC hardware just for one chain of hotel, when they could ship them a few motherboards with a PC to fill some RAM as necessary. Far cheaper with the same profit levels. Yeah, I know you haven't seen anything like this, but c'mon: you can't honestly have seen inside every cupboard and box in the whole hotel.

He also mentioned that 'Nintendo hardware engine' I wrote about as something that processes the game files when they are ordered - I don't know if it's a small black box, I don't know if it's a card in the PC, but it is not a bank of systems sitting idle or anything like that.

I don't know how you can quote him as saying "Nintendo hardware engine", admit you don't know what it is, and then deny the possibility that it's a bank of mobos.

And the system DOES NOT run on the hotel's phone lines, the controller uses a RJ-11 telephone jack to plug into the back of the televisions in the room

Fair enough, I should've paid more attention ^_^

Sorry if I sound snappy, it just seemed that the things you were questioning had already been explained very well by other posts in this thread.

No worries, it's all in the spirit of lively debate.

[abionic]

just a couple notes..

kyuusaku : coliseum swap meet, i think

as for the hardware setup, while essentially uninitiated, i will wager it is something along these lines:

central server in the basement, probably running freebsd as GSL mentioned.. central server is connected to a breakout box of some sort, which is then routed to the rooms + into set-top boxes via coaxial cable; settop box contains n64-on-chip (or small board) ala the iQue, and rather than streaming the games while they're being played, the games are first buffered into ram in the set-top box, and then played from said ram. satellite downlink or cdrom from technician for loading new games/movies onto server. now, i'm making all this up as i go along, but to me it seems pretty likely (and demonstrably possible). If the games are indeed played by streaming the video output from a central server/emulator back to the rooms, man, does that ever suck.



oh and the controller is indeed for sure RJ-11 phone connector on the back.. i doubt it's for any actual phone use, probably more for cheap manufacturing since RJ-11 hardware is cheap and plentiful.

There's a LodgeNet van that is always parked up the block from my house, perhaps i can catch the driver at some point.

[grap3fruitman]

Sorry to bump an old topic but...


Controller plugs into the GAME/DATA port on the back via telephone connector (RJ-11 someone mentioned), box has a inputs labeled CABLE (coax connector), MTI (RJ-11 connector), PWR (unit input), and a coax output labeled TV.

Items I've acquired:
4 controllers
5 set-top boxes
5 power supplies
1 stand for the controller, not really a stand but it sticks to your tv stand or whatever and you place the controller into it









So I plugged the unit in and can't get anything to display. I'm assuming since it has a cable input I set my tv to cable and ran through the channel tune/test but haven't been able to find a single one that shows a thing, not even an error message. Honestly I'm not sure if the unit's on, there's not power button and no light to let me know. Of course, I've only test one unit so far.


Edit: Ironically, this is my 64th post on the board.