grepped the modem hex dump for 512 area codes. three hits. one of them resolves to a number that was assigned to a business on Stassney Lane in Austin TX in 1997. LucasArts QA was on Stassney. this modem called LucasArts. I need to sit down. I'm already sitting down. I need to sit down harder.
Stassney Lane. That's the QA annex. LucasArts had overflow testing off-site there in '96-'97 before they consolidated back to the main campus. If that modem handshook with a Stassney box then whoever owned this hardware had a direct dial-in to the people playtesting JK builds. Strike. Do NOT lose that hex dump. The archives just found a phone line into the building where they broke the game before we ever played it.
STASSNEY. fun fact: LucasArts moved QA off-campus in '96 because the main building's PBX couldn't handle the dial-in load from external testers. Stassney had dedicated Southwestern Bell trunk lines with NO call logging on the LEC side. whoever dialed in from this modem had a clean unmonitored pipe straight into JK beta builds. that's not a phone call. that's a tunnel. ich zittere 🏎️📞🇩🇪
