[game_preservation] Japanese Computer Game Preservation

[Devin Monnens]

Kieron,

Thank you for the information! I will forward yours and Joseph's contacts
forthwith!

Incidentally, I have a factory sealed copy of Barney Bear Goes to Space for
the Amiga. I saw you have the EU version. I can send it your way as I have
no use for it, though I cannot guarantee it will work. I don't think I have
any other sealed games though. Incidentally, I also have some copies of the
Amiga Software of the Month Club. I backed all of them up to .adf format,
but I don't know if the data is authentic as I played some of the games on
there (real interesting demos, mind). These might be a little harder to send
though as there are a lot of them.

Incidentally, do you have an estimate of how much the preservation project
cost?

-Devin

On Thu, Nov 25, 2010 at 3:09 PM, Kieron Wilkinson <lists at softpres.org>wrote:


>

> Hi Devin,

>

> Sorry for the delay, I have been away.

>

> Yes, that is correct, we are relying on collectors, just like we have done

> with Amiga games. We managed to get hold of many thousands of physical

> copies of Amiga games ourselves (yes, that hurt the bank!), but many of them

> were not suitable for preservation (bad, viruses, copies, modified, hiscore,

> etc.), but we managed to get good copies of most of them by working with

> collectors. Hopefully we can do the same sort of thing for these Japanese

> systems, though maybe not by getting physical copies as it would be far more

> difficult than it was for the Amiga.

>

> No, AFAIK, we have not been in contact with Dr. Akinori Nakamura. Thanks

> for the pointer though.

>

> I'll send you Joseph's details separately.

>

> Best wishes,

> Kieron

>

>

> On 13 Nov 2010, at 17:46, Devin Monnens wrote:

>

> 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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-- 
Devin Monnens
www.deserthat.com

The sleep of Reason produces monsters.
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