[game_preservation] Japanese Computer Game Preservation

[Devin Monnens]

Kieron and Philippe,

So it sounds as if most of the preservation efforts in Japan are relying on
collaboration with collectors? That makes sense as didn't Softpres work with
collectors to find sealed copies of Amiga games? To what extent was there a
connection with developers and academia?

Have either of you gotten in contact with Dr. Akinori Nakamura from
Ritsumeikan? I think he is a little busy at the moment working on Famicom
preservation, but he would certainly be a good contact for your work.

Do you have contact information for Joseph Redon? In what area of Japan is
he located? I am curious as to his work on microcomputer preservation as
well - this sounds intriguing.

Best regards,

-Devin

On Tue, Nov 9, 2010 at 3:39 PM, Kieron Wilkinson <lists at softpres.org> wrote:


>

> Hi Philippe,

>

> Indeed it is primarily Joseph we have been working with. He has indeed been

> extremely helpful on the KryoFlux project. Joseph also seems to have far

> reaching contacts with many of the Japanese collectors, so I think there is

> potential to get quite a lot of good work done in this area.

>

> Best wishes,

> Kieron

>

>

> On 9 Nov 2010, at 07:17, Philippe Dubois, Association MO5.COM, Président

> wrote:

>

>

> Hi guys,

>

> That's very good news, and a member of our association (Joseph Redon) who's

> living in Japan is involved as well into japanese microcomputers software

> preservation, and in the Kryoflux making. We are trying at mo5.com in

> France to settle a small workship to numerise very rare french softwares and

> will try to help with the japanese software preservation as well very soon.

>

> As a much larger view, we're trying here to have the government involved

> into software preservation, with the help of many national institutions such

> as INA (http://www.ina.fr/), CNC (http://www.cnc.fr) and BNF (

> http://www.bnf.fr) which goals are to preserve analog and digital

> documents of all sort, and more particulary the BNF with the softwares.

>

> Best regards from France,

> --

> Philippe Dubois, Association et site web http://mo5.com

>

>

>

> Hi Devin,

>

> Sorry for the delayed post. Yes, we at the Software Preservation Society

> are indeed working with some of our Japanese contacts to preserve software

> for systems such as the PC88 with the help of our KryoFlux (

> www.kryoflux.com) devices and software.

>

> We are at an early stage right now, but we have some very dedicated people

> over there beginning to start work on this with us. We are hoping to get

> devices to as many people as possible, however, since our entire KryoFlux

> first production run of 80 units sold out in a matter of days, we are having

> to get a second and larger run produced as soon as possible.

>

> I absolutely agree with you about the time element on this, and hopefully

> you will see some good news on this front in the near future.

>

> I hope that helps,

>

> Kieron Wilkinson

> The Software Preservation Society

>

>

>

> On 21 Oct 2010, at 15:18, Devin Monnens wrote:

>

>

> Recently, Hardcore Gaming 101 ran an article <http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/JPNcomputers/Japanesecomputers.htm>on

> Japanese computer systems such as the NEC. The article is in English and

> gives a detailed look at the content from an American perspective. This made

> me realize: most of these games were produced on floppy disks, which means

> that the contents of the disks are extremely volatile and will completely

> decay within the next two decades (even sooner for the earliest software).

>

> There is a large project in Europe, the Software Preservation Society<http://www.softpres.org/>,

> which has securely archived over 3600 titles from Europe and the United

> States across a variety of magnetic disk-based platforms. SPS developed

> special hardware, Kryoflux <http://www.kryoflu/>, that can detect the

> integrity and authenticity of the data on certain formats of floppy disk -

> particularly whether the disk has been written to in order to create an

> archival-quality backup. I am curious if the SPS has any plans to expand

> their preservation work to include Japanese (and Asian) computers, as this

> seems to be an area that is in serious need of focus.

>

> I have also been conducting research into computer games produced prior to

> 1973 - the pre-commercial era of the US. Most of the software from this era

> has been lost or requires an incredible amount of digital archaeology in

> order to get running again. Actually, right now I am most interested in the

> hobbyist scene from countries outside the US, particularly mainframe

> computing. If anyone knows about European and Japanese computer games made

> in BASIC, that in itself would be interesting.

>

> The Japanese hobbyist era (1985 and earlier) seems to have similar problems

> of cataloging. However, there are several magazines such as Technopolis that

> contain documentation of many of these games and underground groups such as

> the Tokugawa Forums <http://fullmotionvideo.free.fr/> that have backed up

> some titles.

>

> Obviously, we would want a legal solution to this problem, so I wanted to

> get a sense of the state of research into and preservation of early Japanese

> computer software (particularly those on floppy disks and magnetic tape, but

> also going back to mainframe computing and BASIC/hobbyist computers). For

> this reason, I have forwarded a copy of this e-mail to our colleagues in

> Japan, including Dr. Akinori Nakamura from Ritsumeikan University, Dr.

> Naohiro Shichijo from the University of Tokyo, Yoichiro Miyake of From

> Software who is conducting research on independent games development in

> Japan, and Kiyoshi Shin from IGDA Japan (sorry for the long English

> e-mail!). I hope we might be able to shed more light on computer game

> research and preservation in Japan.

>

> --

> Devin Monnens

> www.deserthat.com

>

> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

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-- 
Devin Monnens
www.deserthat.com

The sleep of Reason produces monsters.
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