0052.lzh (Server Emulator)

0052.lzh
Information
Dates Operating From/To	2003
Current Status	Defunct
Reason for closure	Was a Proof-of-Concept, basis of Athena, Weiss, YARE.
Influenced	Athena, Weiss, YARE
Influenced By	0001.txt (Ragnarok Packet Specification)
Succeeded by	Athena
Technical Information
Programming language	C
Operating System	UNIX/Linux/Windows

0052.lzh (Also referred to generally as エミュ鯖 or "Emu Saba"/ "Emu Server") is the predecessor for the server emulators Athena (Server Emulator), Weiss (Server Emulator) and YARE, originally published on 19 January 2003. The name refers to a lzh archive file which was shared on the "EmuServer Of Ragnarok", which is one of the origins of code utilising the Ragnarok Online packets, which in 2003 were unencrypted.

Background

On the "EmuServer of Ragnarok" BBS, several authors who were previously players of the Ragnarok Online Beta in 2001, which created a BBS to discuss the emulation of Ragnarok Online and how that would be accomplished at some point in October 2002 . Those who had been able to perform packet sniffing had looked into how the beta from 2001 functioned and had stored the contents of the packets -- this was then then used as the basis of fragments of code to try and reproduce these packets, which were posted by various authors -- one author in particular, Mr 35 (an automatically generated ID for the given BBS) uploaded files with various numbers, 0052 being a fairly well-fleshed-out predecessor known as I-Athena, which is the predecessor to the Athena Emulator.

In February of 2003, a user by the name of "i2" posted his intention to develop Athena:

462 Name: i2 ★ Post date: 2003/03/18 (Tue) 23:31 ID:MBcWy.lI
I discovered the topic of emu mackerel at the end of February, and thought it would be a good learning material for programming, so I decided to develop it with a friend.
We have improved the source of the C language-based "Athena" and will release it as "I-Athena".
I'm a newbie, but I appreciate your continued support.