Old School Akiba New Member here...

Hi all.

I lived in Japan and went to college + worked there from 1989-1997. I really only got into Japanese computers in 1990 - I was a Vic20 + Commodore 64 user in the States up until then, before knowing how to use a computer was considered much more than a geek thing.

Now I live in Texas with my Japanese wife and our daughter, but there's always a chance we'll go back.

I'm not certain how it is now, but then there were about 10 shops I would go to nearly every week for a couple of years there, including Sofmap for used stuff with its highly annoying theme song from hades that would repeat over and over ...."It's a Sofmap World!" (ding ding)

I sometimes made spare money for my computer habit by finding used NEC9801's on "big garbage" day on street corners near me. I'd take them home, make sure they worked, clean them and sell them for 200 bucks or so each at some place like Sofmap.

I was usually the only Gaijin in a crowd of backpack-wearing Otaku, and was an FM Towns freak until the late 90's when I was forced to migrate to the PC world. I had 3 different models of FM Towns over the years and many many games that I wish I had held on to. Like the full-speech Ultima 6 or ultra rare Ultima Trilogy, or a game called Necronomicon that had some really freaky music (I was not a "Hentai" fan, but I love H.P. Lovecraft and it was still a good story, ecchi aside).

I also was big on the Sega Megadrive, and loved games like Bahamut Senki and Herzog Zwei.

Every couple of years or so I go back to Japan and usually make a stop in Akihabara.

Recently I've been hit by a wave of nostalgia, and have started using the "Unz" FM Towns emulator, picking up ISOs where I can, but they are very limited, and I've almost given up hope of ever finding that Necronomicon game again -- unless on my next trip I can seek out and find a shop that sells used Towns stuff.

Anyway, looks like a good forum here.

 

Hey, welcome! I would have loved to have gone to Japan in '89/90 (but I was still 11 years old...) back in the golden days of Famicom/MD/PCE/GB/Lynx/SFC rivalry. Of course, Akihabara wasn't much of secret back then, but it seems to have gone "off" recently, as a few of us have been bemoaning.

 

Thanks ccovell - yeah, I recall on top of that all of the computers Sharp X68000, IBM PC, PC9801, MSX, and even a shop for Amiga stuff - and of course Fujitsu with its big showroom staffed with lovely ladies.

So what is it now, Sony Playstation 3 dominance pushing out other competing platforms as I read in another thread? I really dislike Sony...

I was around for the Windows 95 revolution that pretty much spelled the end for the unique computers like the Sharps and Fujitsus. That was a sad time... Aside from some innovations like the "Woody" PC with its PD drive, it meant the end of uniqueness and a move towards generic boxes.

Not that I didn't enjoy BUILDING those boxes from parts around Akiba....

 

still you can find a lotlot of retro stuff for almost any systems ever created in and also outside of japan, but the Towns just seems to be a real hard nut product to find nowadays. means, you're almost unable to find any towns related products on the street/shops. if you either not the super oh lucky man or have good conections to shop owners etc. there isn't much chance to find any towns soft or hardware. a better adress would be the so called hard-off shops, but which also rarely selling Towns items nowadays.

but not so on http://search.auctions.yahoo.co.jp/search/auc?p=FM+TOWNS+&auccat=0 auctions, there are a lot of items up daily.

 

Sofmap's game shop recently shut down. I took a picture of it. I never really bought anything from them, but they always had the latest games on display.

 

Thanks for the tip on Yahoo! Auctions - maybe I can get my brother in law to grab some of that if Necronomicon or Ultima 6 ever come up for bid.

 

Ultima VI was up yesterday funnily enough. I nabbed it to complete my set..then realised I'd already got it (not updated the list) lol so perhaps i'll put it up for sale when it arrives

Gamechoiceclub had Necroetc but not any more it seems. Maybe email them. Or I can ask my mate for the iso, hmmmmm.

 

I was quite sad when I saw that. Although they have just consolidated the large numbers of stores they had into seperate buildings, so each one only sells a certain thing, games, mac stuff, adult software, PCs + other hardware, etc. Although I remember when Sofmap did have 3 shops that sold games.

I hope you will post the picture to the Japan pictures thread.

Back to FM Towns related stuff, ever since Maxload closed there hasn't been anyone selling anything. Maxload were great as they had games for every system including PC-98x1, PC-8x01, PC-6x01, FM-7/77, FM-Towns, Dos/V, X1, X68000, MZ-700, MSX and a few others. Happy memories, now the place is a generic PC Parts place and the floor above seems to sell hentai stuff. I've seen about a dozen Towns titles in the last few years and all of them have been hentai games... (although most of these have been in hentai sections of shops...)