Featured today on our Cowpie of the Day, the Microsoft Wireless Networking Adapter for the XBOX 360.
Back when I was just a small calf, playing Jumpman on my Pentium 90-Mhz computer, I used to have to connect to my favorite bulletin boards via an ultra fast 2400 baud modem and a phone line. The bulletin boards would sometimes have active chat boards, where you could post a message, and your cyber-friends (40-something dudes living in basements all over the metroplex areas of the US) could post messages for each other, download the latest text games, and even share bitmap images of cuties, all at blazingly slow upload speeds. US Robotics, Westel, and Modem Blaster were the champions of the hour – delivering crushing speeds of 9600, 14.4k, 28.8k and eventually 56k transmission, if your parents would stop picking up the handset for more than a few moments.
Now, forwarded 15 years into the future, you can play your Xbox 360 online, in high-def, without dialing a single number! No modem commands, no programming strings to type in… its incredible!! Advancements in technology have made it possible for 5-year-olds around the world to crush you at HALO 24 hours a day, 7 days a week without mercy. If thats not enough, Microsoft has made a doo-hickey to plug in the back of your game console and let it connect to WiFi networks within range. This means you can wrap up that wire from your bedroom to the living room so Aunt Bessie doesnt have to worry about tripping over the cable anymore. While I guess that there are some things that are cooler than that – it really is amazing that modern advances have produced wireless data in the past decade and a half, and that it can be used for something as crucial as video games.