sCZther
sczther.bsky.social
sCZther
@sczther.bsky.social
Videogame archivist and historian, focus on local (czech/slovak) history and obscurities
Reposted by sCZther
This is a pretty big deal; Heavyweight Champ is an early predecessor to fighting games, is TTL-based (and therefore difficult to emulate) and there are no extant units that I'm aware of. All we've had is a few precious seconds of it being played from a newscast. Here's hoping it lives again soon.
The Bologna museum of coin-ops and pinball seems to have unearthed the original schematics for the early (1976) Sega coin-op Heavyweight Champ (today considered to be lost media). Using them, the game could now theoretically be rebuilt from scratch.
September 23, 2025 at 1:29 PM
Today I learned that there are Czech games for the Atari Portfolio. I hope the platform is easy to emulate.
Found all but one for download too! I am now wondering if any of them got onto the PD disks distributed by the local game store JRC (the biggest and still exists, they loved everything Atari).
September 18, 2025 at 8:56 PM
I had a dream today about the woes of dumping 8 inch floppies. I guess I need to get to the stack of them I want to do all summer ^^
September 17, 2025 at 9:43 AM
Working on a list of local games that are unpreserved. It is surprising how many titles haven't been found yet, but I think Czechia and Slovakia is still in a very good place compared to the rest of the world. There are over 500 games archived for the ZX Spectrum alone!
September 15, 2025 at 2:57 PM
Enjoying my first Ceegs in Wrocław! I had a workshop about my research into Czechoslovak pong clones and visited the Museum of Games and Computers of the Past. Lots of interesting panels and connections being made. I am already looking to future attendances.
September 10, 2025 at 9:14 AM
The Pokéwalker is one of my treasured memories, hit at just the right time for me. I am very glad that there is now a new emulator that hopefully implements all of its features.
github.com/h4lfheart/Po...
GitHub - h4lfheart/PocketWalker: An H8/300H emulator tailored for the PokeWalker
An H8/300H emulator tailored for the PokeWalker. Contribute to h4lfheart/PocketWalker development by creating an account on GitHub.
github.com
August 19, 2025 at 10:29 AM
I have been following the diligent work of GBA emulator developers and I have made a massive update to the GBA accuracy test results page on emugen wiki. The overview is getting bigger with each update and showcases nicely where different emulators stand.
emulation.gametechwiki.com/index.php/GB...
GBA Tests - Emulation General Wiki
emulation.gametechwiki.com
June 27, 2025 at 4:23 PM
It is extremely hard to get these publications and I hope that VGHF can slowly fill out the holes in this collection. But releasing such a huge batch is already an enormous boon to game researchers!
are you ready

📰 It's TRADE MAGAZINE WEEK 📰

💥 NEARLY 400 video game industry trade magazines, full-text searchable by the public 💥

🎙️ NEVER-BEFORE-SEEN interviews with Shigeru Miyamoto, Sid Meier, and more 🎙️

☠️ NOT for the FAINT-OF-HEART historian ☠️

🚨 ONLY at archive.gamehistory.org 🚨
June 23, 2025 at 9:25 PM
Sooo, I have successfully finished my masters in digital game theory, even somehow managing to pass with straight A's. It has been a challenge to travel to a neighboring country every week while working full time, but I managed and am happy with the results.
June 18, 2025 at 7:41 AM
Reposted by sCZther
One source for totally lost games is the desk-sized Noval computer by Gremlin Industries.

I just finished going over that portion in my book and it bums me out that none of the software is preserved. There were really advanced arcade and educational games on it.
June 6, 2025 at 5:19 PM
Reposted by sCZther
It costs a pretty paltry annual sum to support the Game Preservation Society, which has been doing the heavy lifting of safeguarding Japan's game history. It's a shame they're in such dire straits, so if you've got the ability to help support I highly recommend it.
April 30, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Reposted by sCZther
A new video update on '4500 pages of game conference history', newly added to the VGHF Digital Library: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lemN...
4500 pages of game conference history | VGHF Library Highlights
YouTube video by The Video Game History Foundation
www.youtube.com
April 28, 2025 at 3:53 PM
Reposted by sCZther
One of our projects, Ruins of Alph Research, is seeking lost information and media from Pokémon's past, along with information that isn't well documented.

If you attended an official Pokémon event, own rare merchandise, or ran a fan page we haven't covered, contact us

ruinsofalphresearch@gmail.com
April 14, 2025 at 10:51 AM
Reposted by sCZther
Pics of a train simulator running on a computer with a screen that appears to be vector-based. It was presented at the Japan World Exposition in 1970, but there were already traces of it in 1967.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gM0...
Via @michelentongs.bsky.social, @adoru.bsky.social and Florent Gorges
March 17, 2025 at 7:15 PM
Reposted by sCZther
My recently-taken-down video essay on the history of 177 and media depictions of sexual violence in Japan is now available in a more heavily censored version.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gHr...
Shares and watches would be tremendously appreciated, thank you.
177: "It's not a crime if it's a game" | Disgraceful (Censored Reupload)
YouTube video by Detchibe
www.youtube.com
March 11, 2025 at 5:05 PM
Reposted by sCZther
Making good progress decoding the #MegaDuck Laptop printing protocol.

Prob make a test ROM eventually to verify.

REQUEST: If anyone has a working #MegaDuck Printer, laptop and flash cart and can do testing later on, let me know. (I don't have the printer)
March 2, 2025 at 12:57 AM
Reposted by sCZther
In 2022, I introduced the project DISCMASTER, which is a unique project to make the internals of tens of thousands of 1990s-2000s CD-ROMs findable in a semantic search.

Today, I'm announcing the team has now made DISCMASTER 2, a ground-up rewrite with so much improvement.

discmaster.textfiles.com
DiscMaster
discmaster.textfiles.com
March 3, 2025 at 12:20 AM
I will hopefully have another rare home pong variant on my way from Singapore. Big thanks to several people who provided me with possibilities of working out the transport, especially @atarispot.bsky.social and @marklincadet.bsky.social!
February 21, 2025 at 1:52 PM
I have purchased an intriguing console, the Multiplay 80. It is a home pong clone, but given it's size and unusual layout of the buttons, it probably doesn't run on the usual AY-3-8500 chip. It is now on its way from France.
February 20, 2025 at 12:40 PM
Reposted by sCZther
Here's Famitsu Quest, a RPG Tsukuru 4 game by Famitsu, which you could get by mailing PS1 memory cards to them and then sent back with the game.
archive.org/details/fami...

But this is a partial recovery, because the Scenario 1 data is missing, replaced by FF7 saves.
#RPGMaker #PS1 #Preservation
Famitsu Quest (RPG Tsukuru 4 Game Data) (Partial Recovery) : Famitsu : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
The following is a dump of a Memory Card with Famitsu Quest, a game made by Famitsu for RPG Tsukuru 4 for the PlayStation 1.You had to send your Memory Card to...
archive.org
February 18, 2025 at 1:08 PM
Reposted by sCZther
EFGAMP continues to grow. 📢 We are glad to announce, that @hernihistorie.cz becomes a new member. Herní historie is a Czech collective of quite young retro game enthusiasts doing a lot of interesting stuff with a focus on Czechoslovak gaming history.
Full news:
efgamp.eu/2025/02/18/c...
February 18, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Reposted by sCZther
HxCFloppyEmulator v2,16,10,1 released

First online/browser experimental version : hxc2001.com/hxcfesw/

And many more new features and fixes !

Please have a look to the release notes for the details !

github.com/jfdelnero/Hx...

hxc2001.com/download/flo...

#hxc2001 #floppyemulator
January 13, 2025 at 12:03 AM
Reposted by sCZther
New scan: MCV Magazine 650 (August 2011). Inside:

• Lots of useful info if you're heading to Köln for Gamescom 2011.
• Dancing games go from strength to strength. #1 on the sales charts: Zumba Fitness.
• A look at Namco's slate, including some game called 'Dark Souls’?

archive.org/details/mcv-...
MCV Magazine issue 650 (August 12 2011) : Intent Media : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
MCV UK games industry trade magazine issue 650 from August 12th 2011.Scanned at 600DPI with a Brother MFC-J6930DW.
archive.org
January 22, 2025 at 5:15 PM
Reposted by sCZther
Did you use the Internet Archive this year to research, read, explore web archives with the Wayback Machine, or discover something new?

Your support makes it possible!

👉 Like & share to spread the word.
💙 Consider donating to keep Internet Archive growing: archive.org/donate/?orig...
December 30, 2024 at 5:38 PM
Tommorow and on Saturday I will be attending Game Developer Session, one of the two big gaming conferences locally. I have some other duties and wasn't planning to attend, but I got a free ticket. So I will probably use my time there to greet some people and enjoy indies, just relax a bit.
December 12, 2024 at 10:34 PM