[WEB] kamui.cool -Restoring webpages for DC

[OatBob]

kamui.cool/

Greetings Dreamcast fans,

This project started March 2024 and continues to grow. I hope these restored webpages become a useful asset for those bringing their Dreamcasts online. With over 120 *.dricas.ne.jp subdomains, and many more 3rd party site... there's potential to continue providing content for years. Additionally, fanpages showcase the culture of the era, and offer a view to how gamers balance their time between different hobbies.

It's no secret that the primary source is The Wayback Machine (web.archive.org). This project aims to make improvements on the source where possible. This involves stripping the wayback script, patching broken html, updating fixed web links to relative links, and replacing missing images where appropriate. The host has been great so far, with no outages and faster speeds. An bonus to removing the wayback script is modern browsers can use extensions or google translate without conflict.

Priorities
The primary goal is high volume of content, but the vision is to link as many pages as possible. "New" developments like a translation patch or restored online functionality can bump a page to top priority. Current workload queue is advancing in this order:

1. Core 1: isao.net
2. WOW Entertainement game pages
3. Core 2: Dream Home (dricas.ne.jp)
4. Overworks website and game pages (Sakura Taisen, Eternal Arcadia, Opendice, GuruGuru Onsen) substitute for KID
5. Capcom website and game pages

Focus is primarily on the Japanese library. The region showed much more online support, but has been less celebrated in the west. Maybe visitors will discover something new.

Bottom-tier priorities are: decadent homepage features, translations, and the multiple PSO homepages. Effort placed on fancy homepage features takes away from the focus on completing gamepages. PSO is a large subject, and the workload competes with the current heavy "core" project.

Spin-off pursuits

• Catalog and collect DLC in a centralized resource. A documented list of missing DLC may bring awareness and a more focused search to recover the lost data. This has the potential to be a daunting task on it's own. Making note of missing files takes little effort by comparison.
• Webpage resources - share information for publishing compliant HTML, as well as optimizing for Dreamcast compatibility.

Challenges

• Find an alternative to display flash media compatible with DC browsers.
• EUC-JP encoding is not fully compatible with Notepad++. Find a better text editor.
• Pursue lost media. Accept losses.
• Colgate provided "Beam Force" file. VMI downloads in PlanetWeb, but not DreamPassport. Need to investigate more.
• Similar problem to "Beam Force"... I think I have sourced the Japanese version of the Zombie Revenge "Present" DLC from the Famitsu DC - Dreamcast VM Data -SHUU downlaod disc. Most VMU managers create a broken VMI file that is not suitable for download.

Thank you for visiting.
~OatBob

[OatBob]

.

[Xiden]

Nice!

[colgate]

I have a bunch of us and jp websites I scrapped back in the early 2000s, I have been sitting on them for 20 years without a plan.

Why not add them under the dreampipe umbrella?

[Xiden]

I'm always happy to add more if you guys have them

[OatBob]

I have a bunch of us and jp websites I scrapped back in the early 2000s, I have been sitting on them for 20 years without a plan.

I've been meaning to contact about that. A private source separate from archive.org is a priceless asset.

Why not add them under the dreampipe umbrella?

Collaboration is always better than competition. The skill level is low for this kind of work, and many have expressed interest in such a project.

My vision is to follow "external" links to complimentary pages. To provide a seamless experience without broken links is the goal. Notice the filepaths are unique and deviate from the original URLs. Unfortunately, my method denies opportunity for collaboration. It's the main reason I'm targeting less popular games to start. Linking to company pages and fanpages adds a great amount of time, but also serve to generate more content. Click on anything for the Alfasystem page. All game pages and webcomics linked from the main pages are accessible. All around a graphically beautiful presentation. Other pages that represent my vision are ones like these:
http://kamui.cool/dricas_ne_jp/gg2000/link.html
http://kamui.cool/isao_net/netevent/index.html

Isao.net has a directory of hundreds of user-submitted DC-compatible pages. I would like to complete this directory as part of my project. Isao.net as a whole is a collossal website. I keep coming back to it to polish, expand, and improve. Yet, there's always more. Even after the dreamcast, they continued to promote web services, even collaborating with Sony to promote Final Fantasy XI through ISP bundles. I will likely need to create a map or directory when finished to showcase some of the highlights.

---

Another note. I think there's room for 2 separate sources in parellel. PlanetWeb cannot handle Japanese text encoded to the 2 main formats, SHIFT-JIS and EUC-JP. Also, I'm struggling to author VMI files that are compatible with Dream Passport. These 2 browsers handle the web differently. I'm "punting" on translation work, but that would provide for easy content for another creator.

[OatBob]

Game showcase:

Sega GT: Homologation Special
segagt.dricas.ne.jp

Notes:

• Network event leaderboards are lost. Top rankings are mentioned elsewhere.
• Archive.org failed to save any leaderboard download VMI/VMS files.
• Leaderboard VMI files permutations are: 22 x 9 x 5 = 990. 22 tracks, 8 individual classes plus one "all classes" leaderboard, splits at 0001, 0010, 0100, 0500, and 1000.
• Many VMI download pages are missing, but the pages follow a rigid indexin pattern, making it easy to populate the missing ones.
• Leaderboard tables in place. One is linked to the "Download" page as "DownloadInfo". The other Leaderboard table is under the PC Ranking search page. Between individual class leaderboard, the "ALL class" leaderboard, and the "DownloadInfo" page, I was able to reconstruct many missing ranking tables. Only Track #8 is missing some data.
• It may not be obvious with missing images, but many of the track title graphics under the "Download" and "DownloadInfo" pages do not match the track ranking they should reflect. The graphic is correctly matched under the PC-view-ranking pages. Blame Sega.
• Only 2 "ALL class" leaderboard tables topped 500 entries. Longest table here.

[OatBob]

Been busy. Last few weeks I revisited a few supplementary pages I had brushed off before.

Eve-Zero.com can be visited from the dricas page. Viewing from the web archive, this page appears to be a mess, but most of the images have been stored. By piecing it together, the result is amazing, complete with Javascript mouse-over buttons and everything. I may go back sometime and finish the small handful of missing graphics to perfect it. The gallery even has wallpaper downloads in self-extracting .exe format. A solid site!

sega.co.jp/cyber - Sega Cyber-Coupon Project - I pieced this webpage into 2 different mock-ups. These coupons are temporary, and always changing, so presenting them in a consistent manner is the best I can do. Surprisingly I discovered 3 .VMI files, so now we have some metadata for the missing VMU downloads. The link is buried in some isao.net pages, but may be worth planting on the front page.

Kids-station.com/game/ - KSG is the retail arm of MediaQuest, a Japanese PC games publisher that seems to specialize in localizing AAA PC titles. They covere Shikigami No Shiro Evolution for PC and Xbox, then Shikigami no Shiro II for GC and Xbox. Unfortunately most of the Shiki2 pages are missing, but the fancy flash videos are worth viewing. Just a reminder we live in a post-flash world, so get "ruffle" PC browser extension, or view on Dreamcast using any browser. Crosslinks are buried in Alphasystem's Shiki2 "consumer" webpages.

Zombie-Revenge - Discovered the DLC on the Famitsu DC's VM Data-Shuu disc, and it pairs with the VMI files found from the archive. Only issue with the site is that the downloads only seem to trigger for PlanetWeb browsers.

[OatBob]

kamui.cool/


We moved!

Current server hosting and domain are paid through Feb. 2028, so feel free to bookmark the site.

• New homepage frames provide room for growth.
• Shorter URL for those using the onscreen keyboard. We understand the pain.
• Learned about the htaccess fix for VMI/VMS downloads. Now all DC browsers can download VM files.
• SNK homepage mirror - neogeo.co.jp . Spent 3 weeks on this one.
• Swatch internet time.... currently displays PC only. Investigation continues.

Next on the agenda:

1. kof.dricas.ne.jp
2. VM downloads

[OatBob]

oh no, my main homepage looks poor on DP and PW, I guess I have more testing to do.

SNK website appears to be mostly a PC page and isn't exactly optimized for DC. Fortunately many of the project pages still look great, such as Metal Slug, KoF99, KoF00, and Samurai Spirits. They have some amazing NeoGeoPocket simulator pages with Netscape code, but the size is too big to function in the tiny DC window when it has fixed frame sizes. I may have to delegate this to a new "for PC" section.