[game_preservation] Japanese Computer Game Preservation

[Devin Monnens]

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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