Sega ROM Archive

A collection of Final Sega Mega Drive ROMs archived on discs from Sega of America.
== Overview ==
In the late 80s and early 90s, it was notoriously difficult for video game companies to create and manage backups of their software due to the technological limitations and cost of storage and long distance distribution. In SEGA’s case, the company also had the disadvantage of being a relatively small company - both financial and in their employee quota. Communication problems, either due to internal politics or the lack of the ability to communicate quickly overseas, were also fairly common between America and Japan.
Certain branches of SEGA utilized their own BBS (Bulletin Board System) to help remedy some of these problems. A BBS is consisted of a network of computers running software that allows certain users to “dial into” the server remotely so that they can send messages and files (or in other words, a precursor to the World Wide Web). SEGA implemented their BBS for the purpose of distributing ROM files for quality assurance, testing, evaluation, and manufacturing. The BBS was also utilized for sending progress reports, internal memos, software bug databases, and other miscellaneous files.
The BBS was designed to handle only a small amount of users at the same time with transfer speeds as slow as 2400 bit/s to 9600 bit/s (only to be updated to Cable/DSL like speeds in the mid 90s). The ROM files were compressed (often passworded) and uploaded during various moments of a game’s production by the producer or product manager and then downloaded by employees of other departments to be burned on EPROMs for play testing, media, and evaluation. Once the department that acquired the ROM was finished with a given build, they would wipe any data burned on EPROMs by exposing them to strong UV light for several minutes so that they could be reused the next day (that’s the E part of EPROM, which stands for erasable programmable read-only memory).
Due to storage limitations, the servers were purged of unimportant files frequently so that new files could be uploaded for more ongoing projects. Important files from past projects would be archived separately for other purposes. SEGA continued to utilize the BBS until sometime after the Sega Saturn’s life cycle in America. SEGA would continue to utilize the data that had survived from the BBS for various other projects, such as SEGA Channel, compilations, and reissued releases.
Sometime in April of 1994, an attempt was made internally to create an easily accessible backup of all the available final SEGA Mega Drive ROMs SEGA had on file that existed up until that point for the purpose of distributing on SEGA Channel. A few hundred uncompressed ROMs were collected and burned on four CD-R’s for the purpose of archival. 
Sometime in 1995, another attempt was made internally to create an easily accessible backup of various builds for internal SEGA projects for the purpose of quality assurance. The archive consisted of a backup of most of the available in development versions of games that were uploaded to the BBS as far back as late 1992. The archive consists of prototype ROM backups for Sega Mega Drive and Sega Game Gear titles. A second attempt occurred sometime in late 1995 or early 1996 to archive the rest of the available ROMs and bug databases made for the Sega Picodrive, Sega 32X, and Sega Game Gear titles. The purpose of either of these backups besides archival is currently unknown.
Finally, another attempt was made internally to create an easily accessible backup of various builds that were available as-is on the BBS in 1996. The archive consists of a disorganized collection of various Sega Picodrive, Sega Game Gear, and Sega Mega Drive prototype ROMs. Once again, the purpose of this backup is unknown.
The ROMs that were archived on four of the CDs were made available in 2008. The other four CDs were comprised of the Sega Mega Drive “Final ROM Archive”. In the process of gathering the ROMs for this website’s relaunch, a discovery was made. Upon review, some of SEGA’s available ROMs were a mixture of different builds that were not identical to the released equivalent. Some of the available ROMs consisted of prerelease prototype builds, in-progress localization builds, unreleased revisions, in-progress revisions, and even full unreleased games. The majority of the different builds were for games before 1993.
The reason for this can be attributed to various possibilities. One such possibility could stem from the communication problems between departments internally at SEGA. ROMs uploaded to the BBS could have been mislabeled or have been misidentified on bad header or file name information that were not frequently changed as often as they should have been. Another possibility is that the “Final ROM Archive” actually consists of builds submitted for initial evaluation so that they could be checked for inconsistencies with SEGA’s internal quality standards. Another possibility is that these ROMs were most likely the only ROMs SEGA had on file for the games at that time.
Regardless of why these ROMs are present, it is clear that SEGA had collected some of these ROMs for the purpose of SEGA Channel and for certain compilation releases. For example, “The Revenge of Shinobi” was released for the first time on PC in 1998 with Sega Smash Pack Vol. 1. The release actually utilized a prototype version of the game that was a few months away from the final release. It was discovered recently that the ROM’s origins were from the “Final ROM Archive”, which was originally meant for SEGA Channel.
In 2016, Hidden Palace has decided to release the rest of the newly discovered contents of the “Final ROM Archive” so that they can be preserved and documented for the years to come.
== Legend ==
For the sake of cataloging the data presented on the archives, Hidden Palace has designed a categorization system for each type of ROM identified from the archive. The system is as follows:
Type 	Description
Final 	The final retail ROM that was made commercially available. Identified against various ROM sets.
Alternate final 	A slight variation made to the final retail ROM. Usually altered with extra padding data, small inconsequential byte changes, or XOR’d messages at the end of the file for Sega Channel.
Revision prototype 	An in progress development ROM for the purpose of testing revisions made upon a previous commercially available build. These are often times never released.
Localization prototype	An in progress development ROM for localization. Consists of grammar or text changes that would be fixed for the final release.
Prototype 	Any prerelease build that has been compiled or dated months before any commercial release. Will usually have many changes, usually lacking in copyright information.
The table also consists of the original file name as discovered on the archive discs, a matching title for the game, the file creation date for the original file, the file size, a small comment on the general differences of the ROM, and a truncated SHA-1 checksum.
== Notes ==
* The file modification dates of the ROMs give us a perspective on when final versions and prototype builds were compiled. They give us a relatively accurate upper bound on the actual build dates of each game build, that is, the actual build dates are slightly earlier or the same as the file modification dates on the CDs. On the other hand, as a rule, the actual builds date should not be later than the file modification dates.
* Some of the dates are inaccurate, because they were modified sometime between their creation and ultimate archival on the CDs. One must also take into account the unknown delay between compiling a build and uploading it to the BBS, as well as inaccuracies in timekeeping on early 1990s computers.
* The ISO 9660 file system standard used on CDs only allows uppercase letters (i.e. it is not case-sensitive), however they have been converted to lowercase for legibility.
* Some of the earlier Alternate Final ROMs consist of extra padding data and sometimes small XORed messages with the words “SEGA Channel”, even though the file creation date on these predate SEGA Channel by a few years.
* The file names have a maximum length of eight characters, suggesting the files originally came from a DOS file system. The file names themselves appear to have been renamed for the purpose of this archive.
* The majority of the earlier ROMs are more likely to be different. As mentioned before, this could have been caused by mismanagement of the data due to the small company size at the time. ROMs for games made after 1992 appear to be identical to the commercially available ROMs but with slight differences made for SEGA Channel.
* Almost all of the ROMs with the letters “jp” at the end of the ROM’s filename, which is used to denote that the ROM is meant for the Japan region, are essentially prototypes. The reason for this is unclear. However, this might be due to communication problems between the Japanese offices during this time.
* The QA Archive discs contain data in other sectors not presented in the file system. The data appears to consist of early SEGA DTS documentation and source code sample references for either the Sega 32X or Sega Saturn. Whether this information can be retrieved in full is currently unknown.
* The QA Archive consists of various builds for strictly SEGA developed projects. Third party submissions are not present except for the “Final ROM Archive”.
* The original discs were imaged by Hidden Palace with ISOBuster (RAW rip setting resulting in a backup of the entire 2352 track).
* FileMaker Pro was used for every bug database within SEGA. Each bug database uses a common template and quality assurance system for approval and classification.
* Passwords for ZIP archives and FileMaker Pro databases were deciphered with Passware Kit Forensic 13.5 (64-bit).
* Almost all FileMaker Pro databases can be opened with FileMaker Pro 2 through 6. All FileMaker Pro databases, save for one, were created and meant to be opened with FileMaker Pro 2 for either Windows 3.1 or MacOS.
* Most of the ROMs in the “Final ROM Archive” have incorrect checksum information in the header.
* Some games will include a build date of their own within the ROM. The dates themselves usually coincide with the file modification date in the archive, but can also refer to a date at least one day prior to the ROM in the archive. This could imply that certain games were uploaded the next day after being compiled.
* Images of the original archive discs can be acquired below in the following table. The table also describes the volume creation date of each and the years covered.
Disc 	Creation date 	Years
Disc #1 Genesis ROMs	Apr 12, 1994 15:46:54	1989 to 1991
Disc #3 Genesis ROMs	Apr 19, 1994 13:51:14	1991 to 1992
Disc #4 Genesis ROMs	Apr 20, 1994 15:26:10	1993 to 1994
== Disc contents ==
== Origin ==
File:Sega ROM Archive spines.jpg
File:Segaarchive1.jpg
File:Segaarchive2.jpg