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PostPosted: January 29th, 2013, 3:29 pm 
I get no response from him yet.


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PostPosted: January 29th, 2013, 4:00 pm 
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Holding thumbs over here. :wink:


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PostPosted: January 30th, 2013, 3:43 pm 
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I have made contact with the very helpful and civil Support Manager for Brother SA. I got this mail from him after my telephonic query:

Quote:
I have checked with my contacts about a Brother software vending machine. They mentioned that the people that worked on the project back in the early ‘80s have all moved on.

They asked, if you give them exactly what information you are looking or what you want to do, they would see what they can help you with.


I have responded as follows:

Quote:
I really appreciate your taking the time to ask your Brother contacts about this. Thank you very much.

I am someone who tries to collect and to assist in preserving old software. There is so much software that was written and run, yet is now gone. This is part of our history, part of our various cultures, and very little is done to preserve it as a record for the future. We are just coming through one of the greatest revolutions in human history – the digital revolution if you wish, and there are many around ( like me ) who were in it from the early days of home/cheap computing – Altairs, Apple ][s, Sinclair ZX80s, the IBM PC and so on. It is incredibly important to archive what has passed before and to record it for posterity: yet we junk the old without any thought of the future. Much of this will never be recovered.

Now, in the 80s and 90s Brother did something amazing. They set up software vending machines called Takeru in Japan, and connected these machines via ISDN lines to download any purchase requests not stored on CDs or hard drives in the machines. All this way before public access to the internet. They licensed software from professional software houses and also a lot from your small home developers. Software was available for many different computers – MSX, NEC PC-8800, NEC PC-98, Sharp X1, Sharp X68000, Fujitsu FM-Towns and others, on all kinds of media – 5.25in and 3.5in floppies, cassettes, CDs. These machines were stunning – a touch screen interface, a cash receiver, an inbuilt printer for printing manuals with your software, drives to write your software to. They published Takeru magazines, had a Takeru Club, everything.

The problem is this. Very little of this software is still around, and very little ever comes up for auction in Japan probably because the packaging is not like retail packaging. It is in danger of being lost forever, and that would be just tragic.

What I and some others would like is to ask, or beg, Brother to preserve whatever they still have of this in some way. There must be backups, or old CDs with the software on, somewhere in a library or archive. These need to be saved if at all possible. One possibility is to do this via the Internet Archive, as a trusted third party, and I can assist in establishing contact there. Alternatively there are several people who could assist in getting the software off the media, some based in Japan.

All we ask is that this priceless Takeru collection not be lost.

Now I do realize, being in business, that this is unlikely to be simple, and would involve some time and cost as well as effort. But it is important, important in the records of this digital revolution we are in.


The kind man responded virtually immediately with:

Quote:
Brother does have its own museum and I have actually see the Takeru software vending machine in there. http://www.brother.com/bcs/index.htm

I will see what I can do for you.


I do not hold out much hope of this leading anywhere, but I do have SOME hope, so let us see.


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PostPosted: January 31st, 2013, 8:36 am 
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For a moment I thought I was in this thread.

Anyway, great work Pete!

I really think that whatever happens with these avenues of investigation, Macaw and anyone else on here interested in the topic and with the knowledge, should collaborate and write a feature on it for online publication. This absolutely needs to be documented somewhere many people can read about it. Pitch the idea to Gamasutra or that new website, Polygon.

This is a fascinating though niche topic, which many probably don't even realise exists. Compare the situation to more known examples, such as FDS and Satellaview, mention great games, or games that are lost, give interview quotes from authors if you have any. Did anything now famous start out on Takeru? This is such a rich topic,

I'd pitch articles on this myself, but having not heard of Takeru before I only know what I've gleaned from these forum topics.

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PostPosted: February 1st, 2013, 1:33 pm 
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Delicious: Lets keep hoping hahaha, but even if there is no response at least you tried the opportunity. Maybe one day the author will search for his old games in Google and find this thread :lol:

peter_j: Interesting stuff!

Sketcz: While its an interesting topic indeed, its important not to hype it up too much. Most of the games provided through Takeru were older commercial games being offered at a budget price, or the doujins. The doujins would have been available at comikets as well, so its not necessarily like Takeru exclusively had this treasure trove of doujin games. Commercial games released exclusively through Takeru like Seraph are the only real exclusive games Takeru provided for the most part, but there weren't very many of these.

Theres a decent amount of info on the Takeru system on Japanese sites, but as far as the West goes I think most people would be happy enough with simply knowing that 'it was vending machines where people could buy digital versions of commercial games or indie games' and thats about it, and hence not have much enthusiasm to do a full blown article anywhere. Thats not to say it doesn't deserve one though or anyone writing one would be wasting their effort, but there isn't much more I can say apart from what I've said already in this forum.


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PostPosted: February 1st, 2013, 2:59 pm 
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Hmm, in that case perhaps I should pitch something to Polygon and emphasise the exclusive releases - and also highlight your efforts to track them down?

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PostPosted: February 3rd, 2013, 6:16 pm 
This month,I'm going to Sapporo and Tokyo.
and i will go shops which carries retro pc games and try to find the game "Elysium".
If you guys find any other games,tell me the title of its game.


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PostPosted: February 10th, 2013, 2:00 pm 
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Its pretty much impossible to find pc88 and pc98 games in shops from what I remember, finding doujin games would be even harder.

But, good luck!


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PostPosted: April 23rd, 2013, 4:55 pm 
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As expected, no reply from Brother.

I have also emailed Jason Scott of The Internet Archive twice, seeking help as to how to save the Takeru data ( what might survive anyway ) and haven't even had a bite - no response, no interest. I get the idea he is interested only in easy-to-find preservation, while blowing his own trumpet about how wonderful he is. Unimpressed.

:(


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PostPosted: May 11th, 2013, 10:52 pm 
I went to the software shop "Pasokon shop MK" in Sapporo.
About 10 years ago they sold many retro pc games,But the store quit dealing them last year.
It seems they sell almost adult games of recent date.


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PostPosted: June 7th, 2014, 10:18 am 
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Did anything ever come of this? I reference this forum topic in my book, so thought I'd pop back to see it. (Currently finishing off the last 3 chapters, including one on the Japanese Game Preservation Society)

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