Abstract
As an example of how the archaeology of modern/contemporary media can be conducted, we examine the technology behind artifacts with cultural relevance in modern society: video games. In particular, we look at two game artifacts from the PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16, a game console produced from 1987–1994. A 1× CD-ROM drive could be added on to the console, with a corresponding increase in the amount of data a game could access, and some games took advantage of this capability to include full-motion video (FMV). This digital excavation report details the FMV formats of two such games along with the methodology used to reverse engineer the formats and verify the correctness of the analysis.
Abbreviations
- ADPCM
Adaptive differential pulse code modulation
- ASCII
An encoding for characters
- BAT
Block attribute table in VDC
- CPU
Central processing unit (HuC6280)
- FMV
Full-motion video
- FPS
(Video) Frames per second
- GB
Kūsō Kagaku Sekai Gulliver Boy
- GIF
Graphics Interchange Format, widely used for bitmap images
- KiB
Kibibyte, or 1024 bytes
- MD5
Algorithm for computing checksums
- NEC
Japanese company (originally Nippon Electric Company)
- PCE
PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16
- PCM
Pulse code modulation
- pixel
Picture element, the smallest display unit on a screen
- RAM
Random-access memory
- RGB
Color representation based on combination of red, green, and blue
- ROM
Read-only memory
- SCSI
An interface between computers and peripherals (e.g., CD-ROM drive)
- SH
Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective
- VCE
Video color encoder (HuC6260)
- VDC
Video display controller (HuC6270)
- WAV
A common audio file format
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© 2019 John Aycock et al., published by De Gruyter
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Public License.
