The network
A cabinet reached AW-NET through a small LAN board plugged into the Atomiswave. A branded router survives too. How the cabinets talked to Sammy's servers has never been documented.
The AW-NET LAN board
The network connection plugged into the board's communication slot. MAME's notes describe the AW-NET network board:
| Board | Sammy AM3AJG-01, "LAN PCB", 2003, marked SAMLAN Rev. D |
| Ethernet controller | Realtek RTL8139CL+ (10/100) |
| Custom chip | Sega 315-6310 |
| Other parts | Pulse H0011 LAN magnetics, 93C46-type 128-byte EEPROM, RJ45 socket |
Collectors' photos also show a communication cartridge with an Ethernet port, labelled "Communication Cartridge" and "Network". See the photo.
The router
A red router branded for AW-NET survives. A collector who examined it in April 2021 found it appeared to be a Micro Research NetGenesis SuperOPT100. They reached its login page in a browser, had to factory-reset it to get in, and then updated its firmware, so whatever settings Sammy put on it were lost.
Sega's network board
Later Sega-made Atomiswave games use a different board, 837-14508R (2005), with a Renesas SH-3 DSP, a Xilinx Spartan FPGA, a Realtek RTL8201 Ethernet chip and a security PIC. Extreme Hunting 2 Tournament Edition won't start without one, even with no cable plugged in. MAME's notes compare it to the network board for Sega's NAOMI. It wasn't used for AW-NET.
In the cabinet
With a network board fitted, the operator turns NETWORK on in the board's Network Settings menu, and the cabinet tries to connect while showing its attract loop. Games then showed whether they were connected: see online or offline.
What isn't known
The saved website says nothing about how cabinets talked to the servers, and no operator manual for the network has turned up. Unknown so far:
- the protocol between cabinet and server
- server addresses and how arcades' lines were set up
- what the router was configured to do
- the exact data layout on the AW card
Sammy's separate manual for the AW Multiplayer System is known from a photo of its cover, but its contents haven't been found.