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

an Ataxx clone

• 3D Tic Tac Toe
• Red Baron (later moved into the Arena Land)
• Graffiti

collaborative art drawing board

• Rocket Quiz (later moved into the school house)

• Stratego

the classic board game

FunHouse

( AKA School House)

• RocketQuiz

a 1 to 3 player math quiz game

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.

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
• One Little Community
• alt.online-service.imagination (on Google)
• Zakky's INN Tribute
• Xenther's Homepage - Home of the Yserbius Project