ImagiNation Network - Definition and Overview

The main GUI interface for the ImagiNation Network shows the colorful art treatment meant to appeal to children.

The ImagiNation Network, originally known as The Sierra Network, was the first online gaming network.

Games

ClubHouse

• Checkers
• Chess
• FlipFlop (previously called Reversi)
• Go
• Backgammon
• Bridge
• Hearts
• Spades
• Euchre
• Cribbage

LarryLand

(a.k.a. CasinoLand)

• Poker
• Black Jack
• Craps
• Roulette
• Veracity

MedievaLand

• The Shadow of Yserbius
• The Fates of Twinion
• The Ruins of Cawdor

SierraLand

• NTN Trivia
• Minigolf
• 3D Golf
• Paint Ball
• Boogers
• 3D Tic Tac Toe
• Red Baron (before Arena Land)
• Graffiti (collaborative art drawing board)
• Rocket Quiz (later moved into the school house)
• Stratego

FunHouse

• RocketQuiz

Arena

• Red Baron
• Front Page Sports: Football

History

• 1991: ImagiNation Network launches
• 1994: AT&T buys ImagiNation Network
• October 6, 1996: AOL buys ImagiNation Network
• 1996: AOL cancelled ImagiNation Network

Emoticons

INN had emoticons programmed into its system. The user just needed to type Alt+#, and it would give a corresponding face.

Keystroke	Emoticon	Face
Alt+1	Happy
Alt+2	Sad
Alt+3	Laughing
Alt+4	Tears
Alt+5	Kiss
Alt+6	Angry
Alt+7	Tongue sticking out
Alt+8	Wink
Alt+9	Heart
Alt+0	Zero

Protocol

The protocol was a simple stop-and-wait protocol with explicit acknowledgment of packets. Packets had a start marker, a sequence number, a 16-bit CRC, the data, and a stop marker. If the start or stop marker occurred within the data, it had to be escaped. All good packets received in the proper order were acknowledged. Any packet out of sequence cause a NAK for the missing packets that came before it. Any packet with a bad CRC also got a NAK. If a NAK was received, or an ACK did not occur within a reasonable amount of time, the packet was retransmitted.

They later moved to a sliding window version of the same protocol to cut down on the number of ACKs that were sent. This didn't change the packet format, but it did cut back on retransmissions.

External links

• Faux INN (http://www.fauxinn.com/)
• One Little Community (http://thewayin.etherealvoid.net/retired/inn/innfriendly.html)
• alt.online-service.imagination (on Google) (http://groups.google.com/groups?group=alt.online-service.imagination)
• Zakky's INN Tribute (http://thewayin.etherealvoid.net/retired/inn/index.shtml)
• Xenther's Homepage - Home of the Yserbius Project (http://www.xensoft.com/)

Example Usage of ImagiNation