A Tale of Two CDs: Archaeological Analysis of Full-Motion Video Formats in Two PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 Games

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.