HabitatThe world’s first MMO developed for the Commodore 64 personal computer, rolled off the assembly line in 1992. It was brought back online in 2017 thanks to the efforts of MADE, art museums and digital entertainment companies.
MADE was founded by Alex Handy in 2011 “to legitimize the preservation of video games as a historical and artistic medium in the context of our times.” To this end, MADE has assembled a collection of available video game consoles and a one for customers to play. Old game library.
“We do exhibitions, we do conservation campaigns to protect old systems, old code, old games,” Alex Handy told edge by zooming.
But what exactly is involved in bringing an MMO back to life? Generous donations, lots of luck, and ridiculous guts.
generous donation
Habitat is an online world that supports over 15,000 users who can run businesses, play games, solve puzzles, discover religions or just hang out. Released in 1986, Habitat Earlier than Ultimate Online and endless mission (The game many people think of when they think of “the first MMO”) Over a decade.
As online communities emerged from the original pre-modern internet soup of the late ’70s and ’80s, games that these communities could play together quickly followed. MUD or Multi-User Dungeons is the first online multiplayer game, entirely text-based. Habitat Inspired by MUDs and taking their concept of shared online gaming spaces one step further.
“Mud is one thing,” Handy said. “But the idea that you can walk around in a static graphical world and interact with other people in it is a new concept.”
Habitat is an online world that supports over 15,000 users
Developed by Lucasarts with video game pioneers Chip Morningstar and Randy Farmer, Habitat Runs on a Commodore 64 PC and connects players online via Quantum Link, the predecessor to AOL’s internet service. Habitat Introduced in beta from 1986 to 1988.Budget considerations forced Lucasarts to be renamed in 1988 caribbean club, It lasted until the end of the early 1990s.
“Caribbean Club Sunset sometime between ’91 and ’92,” Handy said. “But then the IP was sold to Fujitsu, and they ported it to various other platforms and servers. Habitat 2For example, at Sega Saturn Japan. “
Handy and his accomplices at MADE didn’t specifically set out to resurrect Habitat. This is not a long-term passion project or the result of a joint effort. “It’s a good target of opportunity,” Handy said. “We haven’t had a good chance target since then.”
In 2013, Handy planned to set up the MADE exhibit at the Game Developers Conference, a video game industry event for developers to talk about their games. Chip Morningstar, a former developer of Lucasarts, also plans to participate in this GDC.
Handy said, “I reached out to Chip and asked, ‘Hey, do you have anything we can show at the conference? Any source code or anything like that?'” According to Handy, Morningstar sent him Habitat‘s source code as a joke that Handy can’t do anything about 27-year-old code. Undaunted, Handy replied to Morningstar, asking how the developers could get the code to work like the previous game again.
“He just smiled in my face,” Handy said.
lots of luck
Handy gets incredible laughs because in addition to HabitatHis code is prehistoric in terms of video games, and it requires what he describes as an extremely obscure proprietary server and operating system, Stratus VOS, to work.
There are two aspects to the Stratus problem. Handy requires a software operating system and compatible hardware to run it. Solving the hardware part of the equation requires a lot of luck. Tech companies come and go, and if one survives today, it usually doesn’t make or maintain products from nearly 30 years ago. However, Stratus Technologies, the company that makes Stratus servers and operating systems, miraculously still exists. And, perhaps more miraculously, it’s still maintaining its old hardware. So when Handy asked for a server, they sent one.
Software issues are trickier. Any attempt to track down the Stratus VOS has encountered confusion.
“When I contacted the Computer History Museum about the Stratus after we got the Stratus computer,” Handy said, a museum representative responded, “Oh my God, we forgot about the Stratus!”
Unable to get a copy of Stratus VOS, Handy decided to mine the connection and pool resources to see if he could rebuild from scratch.
“I gathered some modern programmers, some people who really like Commodore 64,” he said. “We put all these people in a room with Chip and Randy in a room with this computer […] We just let them go for a day, and at the end of the day, they spin up the server. “
Handy owns the source code for the game and cobble together a server that can host the code. The next step is to make this ancient game work on the modern internet, and that’s when Handy hits his biggest hurdle yet: a lawyer.
ridiculous guts
if you want to play Habitat In 1986, you needed a Commodore 64 and a subscription to a Quantum Link (or Q-link) internet service provider. Habitat is unique to the service and contains the necessary code Habitat The server and Commodore 64 computer work together. Essentially, there was no Q-Link then or now, Habitat does not work. Q-Link was renamed AOL in 1989 and fell into Verizon’s hands through a series of ownership changes over the years.
Handy summoned the courage to ask Chip Morningstar for the source code, Stratus Technologies for the computer, coldly calling the head of Verizon’s legal department, and asking for the old Q-link software library. Good luck again: Not only does Verizon still have these libraries, but it also seems willing to give them up for Handy’s cause.
We just let them go for a day and at the end of the day they start the server
“We thought we’d get them,” Handy said. “I literally had a guy put these on a USB stick, waiting for legal approval.”
But for reasons he could guess, the law didn’t grant Handy’s request. “Even though it’s 30-year-old software, I guess the company thinks it’s the core of its security. So they’ll never open it.”
Handy now has two options. Habitat Can’t work without Q-link, so he either abandons his mission or finds a way to bypass the Q-link requirement. Avoiding Q-links is technically simple. Handy already has a group of developers who are able to create a program that can be HabitatThe servers and players’ computers are essentially the same as the old Q-link service. But the problem comes in the form of a complex law designed to prevent this particular avoidance. It’s the bane of Twitch streamers and YouTube streamers, and the entertainment industry’s enforcement tool — the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, or DMCA.
Broadly speaking, the DMCA protects copyrighted material from unauthorized distribution. The law contains Section 1201, which “makes it illegal to circumvent technical measures used to prevent unauthorized access to copyrighted works, including copyrighted books, movies, videos, video games, and computer software.”
Today, developers embed a program called digital rights management (DRM) into video games to protect them from unauthorized use.Although Q-link existed before DRM as we think of it today, it was essentially DRM protection Habitat. Because DMCA Section 1201 prohibits any attempt to circumvent protections, bypassing Q-link roadblocks is technically illegal.
However, the DMCA does have exceptions; the US Copyright Office grants organizations a 1201 exemption to demonstrate that circumvention of protections is in the public interest. Handy applied to the office for a waiver to create a program to bypass Q-link.
“In the end, the waiver they gave us was basically, ‘You can keep an MMO, you can bypass these verification mechanisms, but only if the MMO is locked in a room and you’re sitting on the computer next to it. You It’s okay to not provide internet access to this thing at all,” explains Handy.
Handy finally has everything he needs to bring Habitat back online, but he was prevented from actually doing so. Without the “O” in MMO, the “MM” part would fall apart. Games are technically alive – but functionally and spiritually worthless.
So what happened? How can anyone play now?
“We don’t care,” Handy said with a smile.
Although Handy’s exemption specifically states Habitat Unable to host it online, he decided to put it online anyway. He was quick to stress that playing the game itself is not illegal. He got the source code from its creator and got permission from the Japanese copyright holder to do anything with it.
“We don’t get a computer software library that allows interconnection, the Q-link middle part, and it’s illegal to circumvent it in particular,” Handy noted.
Handy doesn’t seem at all concerned about any potential legal consequences of his video game protecting guerrilla behavior.
“if [Verizon] Want to come and get upset about it, they can,” he said. “We’ll try to talk to you about it, let’s move on. Ultimately, Handy decided to ask for forgiveness, not permission.
The world’s first MMO
you can play Habitat Online now for free at neohabitat.org. The source code for the game is available on GitHub, and there is a video on YouTube with tips and tricks on how to play.although Habitat Once, capable of supporting tens of thousands of players, Handy says not that many people play now, but the world is alive and people are still using it.
“You know, people are only meeting now,” he said. “You’ll see 2, 3, 4 people popping up.” He even shared that Sweden’s Commodore 64 fan club used to be in the new Habitat.
When we think of MMOs today, we think of World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV. MMOs come with standard features such as customizable avatars representing individual players, in-game currency for earning and using virtual goods, and numerous social activities such as quests, dungeons and player battles.All these MMO standards come from Habitat. At Meta or Google or Amazon once dreamed…
