Episode 677: Type-In Games

Kevin: If you listen to this podcast, you’re probably well-versed in the many, many formats video games have been and continue to be distributed in: digital downloads, cartridges, CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, floppy disks, cassette tapes, even vinyl. But good old-fashioned paper has served as a way to distribute game programs since the 1960s, and that brings us to today’s topic: type-in games.

If you had access to a computer (or even some game consoles) and some way to save and load programs, chances are you could find type-in listings for it. These were written by enthusiasts and occasionally professional developers, and published in books, magazines, and newsletters, just waiting for someone to spend the time to type them in, try them out, and maybe even to modify the program themselves. Given the sheer number of games distributed this way, there’s quite a few that have been trapped as ink on paper for decades, a situation that preservationists have been trying to change. And joining me to talk about these programs are two such people: Dustin “Hubz” Hubbard, who runs the website Gaming Alexandria, and Ozidual, who has really spearheaded Gaming Alexandria’s “Type-In Taskforce” initiative to bring these nearly lost programs back to life. Expect a lot of talk about Famicom type-ins, preservation tools and Star Trek as we highlight what makes these programs so cool and this work so rewarding.

Edits by Greg Leahy; art by Amanda Neipris

• 08:18 - "Funeral March of a Marionette" (Bally BASIC ver. by George Moses)

• 19:51 - xyce: "1982 6851" (C64 SID)

• 31:25 - "A Hard Day's Night" (Bally BASIC ver. by George Moses)

• 42:21 - Kirby Super Star: Battle Windows

• 54:23 - Secret of Mana (SNES): The Oracle

• 1:07:17 - Power Drift (MSX): Like the Wind

• 1:18:01 - ZX Freeq: "Star Trek 50th Anniversary Demo" (ZX Spectrum 48/128k)

• Closing - "Sinfonica to Cantata No. 29" (Bally BASIC ver. by George Moses)