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Retro Scan of the Week: Baton TelePlay Modem for NES and Genesis

February 19th, 2007 by Benj Edwards
Baton Teleplay Modem Advertisement

When I first saw this ad in EGM around 1992-93, I wanted one of these modems so bad. I was hugely into BBSes and computer telecommunications at the time, and the thought of using one on a console to play games with friends was awesome. My best friend called my BBS, and my imagination went wild thinking about all the fun we could have with a pair of these modems. That is, assuming the games were good.

Eventually, I convinced my mom to call Baton (being a about 11 or 12 years old then) to see if she could order one, but by that time either the phone number was already disconnected, or she didn’t get an answer. Or maybe she did talk to somebody — my memory’s fuzzy on that point. I was hugely disappointed. Crushed. The Teleplay modems never showed up in stores and I never heard anything about them again.

I did get excited when Xband modems came out some years later (for the SNES and Genesis), but I found the experience with their service somewhat lacking. I wanted a direct player-to-player connection with no game broker or middle man.

For more on the story behind the Baton Teleplay modem, check out Frank Cifaldi’s investigative piece at Lost Levels Online. I’m really glad he took the time to research the company so that their story isn’t completely lost to history.

Unfortunately, I forgot to document the issue number this ad appeared in when I scanned it some time ago.

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 19th, 2007 at 2:36 pm and is filed under Gaming History, NES / Famicom, Retro Scan of the Week. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

4 Responses to “Retro Scan of the Week: Baton TelePlay Modem for NES and Genesis”

  1. KitsuneDarkStalker Says:
    February 19th, 2007 at 6:19 pm

    I remember Xband and it’s ilk… to be perfectly honest, I prefer good old fashioned 2 people at the same console to net play.

  2. Mike Says:
    February 20th, 2007 at 9:50 am

    I never heard of this modem but I do remember the first time I played Doom (PC) over my modem with one of my buddies. I thought it was a miracle and the kewlest thing.

    We sure have come a long way from the roaring ‘beep beep beep – hiss – static – beep’ days of our old phone modems.

    Remember when 14400 was a lightening fast speed?

  3. Squeedo Says:
    February 20th, 2007 at 11:11 am

    I remember when 2400 was BLAZING fast! I went from a 300 baud to a 2400 and thought I was the king of the world!

  4. Press The Buttons Says:
    February 21st, 2007 at 7:58 pm

    Teleplay Modem Madness

    Sega wasn’t the only company interested in producing a modem for use with a game console back in the early 16-bit era. Vintage Computing has dug up an old advertisement for the never-released Baton Teleplay game console modem, a little

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