Battletech Pod Archive Project

Official Twitter Account. Archiving all things soft/hard/paper for Battletech Pods. Not affiliated with FASA Corporation, Catalyst Games, VWE, or Pirahna Games.

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

Here is the Battletech Center Pod Version 3 software! Look in the description of the archive for details on extrraction and notes.
https://t.co/gTeSPsuCPS

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

Amazing news! Tomorrow I will finally acquire Battletech Center backup tapes for archiving! I have the software all set up to archive the files on there off a DDS-1 Tape drive. Tapes are in the Retrospect archive format, and will contain various versions of the software. ->

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

Able to emulated. First step, is making a server emulator to see if our theory’s work. We will document everything we know, and contact the MAME community to see if they can take over from there. We are also photographing all the boards in hi-res soon, depending on our sources!

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

Amazing news! After collaborating with someone in the reverse engineering community, we have figured out a way to potentially bypass the A/ROSE card entirely! Not only that, we have been able to identify almost all the chips on the various boards! We are now collaborating with->

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

various sources to obtain the boot ROMs and other essential information from known 3.0 Pod owners. AFAIK, all the chips are off-the-shelf, aside from the Amiga boot ROMs, which we are in the process of obtaining. The off-the-shelf chipsets are available in MAME, and should be->

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

PLEASE STAND BY…

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

as I understand it, @VirtualWorldLLC is looking into this route currently, so maybe something will come of it. Without an actual working A/ROSE card, schematics, or other source, emulation progress is essentially dead. Wish I were more optimistic, but it’s all we can do for now

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

While emulation would be great, I think the best solution as of now would be to take assets from the software archive I was able to recover and using videos and first hand knowledge, recreate the game in an engine like Unity or Godot. The ultimate goal would be a completely ->

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

every mech. The hard part, is emulating the hardware networking and control systems. Unless you have a pod near you, you basically have no way to network capture the ArcNet commands. You also wouldn’t be able to test hardware streaming compatiblity for the pod-side hardware->

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

ripping the models from the server software, as they are in ascii format, but it’s the server/client commands, boot code, and gameplay programming that’s hard

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

Obviously it would be difficult, but unless it’s absolutely impossible, I think the best course of action for pod preservation, would be complete server emulation. Unfortunately that would require packet captures for hardware that’s almost unobtainable. The easy part would be

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

Kinda working on reviving this project again. Progress has halted since my local source has gone AWOL. Current rights holders are decently far from me so I have to rely on them for stuff (which I’m very grateful for their cooperation)

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

@RealTFD @CircadianSkates Nice!!! I’m getting a real 3.0 manual soon from one of my contacts! 😁

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

@RealTFD @CircadianSkates Unfortunately not. I’m really only on Twitter and archive dot org. You can find my pod archive here, with System software, manuals, and merch preserved: https://t.co/jIJIurDPdO

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

@RealTFD @CircadianSkates It’s great! I dig the editing and the interviews! I actually haven’t seen those promo videos before! I’ll have to find them and archive them! Not trying to sound too egotistical, but if you ever want an interview so I can get the word out to more people with emu exp, I’ll do it!

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

@CircadianSkates @RealTFD Thanks for the tag! I’ll check it out!

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

@ArtofBattletech will really enjoy the posters!

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

Updated the archive with some more manuals and promo materials. Also included in this dump is some hi-resolution merch posters that were sold at the various BTC's click this link for access to the archive: https://t.co/jIJIurDPdO

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

Going to try to start this project up again. just need to get in contact with a few people for updates!

[Battletech Pod Archive Project @BatTechArchive]

I think we all know where this is going. House Steiner sends their regards. Maybe they can use @VirtualWorldLLC Battletech pods for interface training

[SPACE.com @SPACEdotcom]

Watch Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos Control a Giant Mech Robot https://t.co/CfOcz4ykLz