{"id":622,"date":"2010-01-04T23:59:16","date_gmt":"2010-01-05T04:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/?p=622"},"modified":"2010-01-06T10:57:56","modified_gmt":"2010-01-06T15:57:56","slug":"retro-scan-of-the-week-interact-sharkwire-online","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/archives\/622\/retro-scan-of-the-week-interact-sharkwire-online","title":{"rendered":"[ Retro Scan of the Week ]<\/span> InterAct Sharkwire Online"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"InterAct<\/a>Click above to see the full advertisement.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Ten years ago, InterAct began advertising this obscure online attachment for the Nintendo 64 called “Sharkwire Online.” I personally don’t know much about the device or how it was supposed to work beyond what Wikipedia<\/a> and IGN<\/a> have to say about it.<\/p>\n

That is, it appears the Sharkwire was a dial-up modem that plugged into a N64 and allowed game console owners to access an ISP<\/a> of sorts, through which they could download the latest cheats and codes to their Sharkwire units, which would then function, I presume, like the more common InterAct GameShark<\/a> peripheral.<\/p>\n

This whole setup seems like an overly elaborate Rube Goldberg way of cheating at games, so it’s no surprise that the Sharkwire Online quickly faded into oblivion. I didn’t remember it at all when I came across this ad in EGM the other day; not only did I pore over each issue of that magazine religiously throughout its entire run, but I usually took specific note of any online-related accessories.<\/p>\n

Did anybody out there have one of these? Would you care to fill us in on what exactly it did from a user’s perspective? Did it do it well?<\/p>\n

Happy 2010<\/h3>\n

As a side note, it’s now 2010, which, thanks to my longstanding but completely arbitrary “vintage” guideline, means that the year 2000 now opens to us as a source of VC&G<\/em> material. <\/p>\n

History marches on, and what was once new continuously slides away from us until it crosses into the realm of obsolete curiosity. Funny enough, in a time when a five year-old cell phone seems like it was from the stone age, ten years is beginning to feel like a conservative figure. Still, it’s always a minor shock to see what becomes the nouveau vintage<\/em> every year.<\/p>\n

[ From Electronic Gaming Monthly, February 2000, p.206-207 ]<\/small><\/em><\/center><\/p>\n

Discussion Topic of the Week:<\/strong> How do you feel about “cheating” at video games with devices like the GameShark, Pro Action Replay, and the Game Genie? Is it a good or bad thing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Click above to see the full advertisement. Ten years ago, InterAct began advertising this obscure online attachment for the Nintendo 64 called “Sharkwire Online.” I personally don’t know much about the device or how it was supposed to work beyond what Wikipedia and IGN have to say about it. That is, it appears the Sharkwire […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,35,27,26,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-video-game-info-and-history","category-internet-history","category-regular_features","category-retro-scan-of-the-week","category-retrogaming"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vintagecomputing.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}