Have you ever seen one of these?

[kikai ninjin]

I was looking for some TM material on the net when I saw an interesting collection of floppy disks on sale. Because it was cheap and because I was intrigued by them, I bought all three packages. Since the date on the ad photos said that collection was from circa 1998, I didn't expect much from the integrity of the data, even though it looked unused. After they arrived at my home, I took a closer look at them and I was lucky enough to get them all intact, undamaged and with their cellophane wrap intact. Basically the collection consists of a set of 3 packages, each with 2 floppy disks. I was able to successfully read all the files. I was also able to confirm that these files are from 1998.



I found an old PC with a floppy drive I copied all the files, 42 compact files in the .lzh extension, that stored 56 images in .bmp. As I said, I wasn't expecting much, nor was I hoping it was an "unseen TM photo collection", but let's say I was hoping for a little more. So all the photos are some kind of stills of scenes or some cell scans from OVA 1 and 2.
Theres an exemple of a pic from the floppy (left) and a scene from OVA 1 Ep 06:



Gallery

Download link for the pics(no password required)

With the help of WaitoKon on translating the text on the 'Sasami Cover':
"So the Sasami picture, it is a note from 'Notan Project' circa August 16 1998. It essentially states 'the image is 480p quality and from a bitmap, using LHA compression. It is not ideal for wallpaper print quality. Use for individual. Thank you for your patronage.' The other ones say essentially the same, specifying additionally that 'these images did not make it in time for the latest Doujin publication'."

Even tho that collection turn out to be just a novelty, I'm still impressed by the quallity of those pics. And because I love those odd and unusual material from TM, I was intrigued by its nature and I had some  questions in mind:

-Are those floppy disks some kind of licenced product, or studio archive or even some homemade/fan made material?
-What's the motivation of creating, scanning or copying those files?
-Who made those and why put them on sale?
-What Notan Project has to do with them?
-Who Am I? What Am I?

I coudn't find those answers nor I've found a single reference of those disks anywhere. So, If anyone know about them, it would be very cool to share with us. As a side note, interesting enough the .lzh format was invented in Japan in 1998 by 吉崎栄泰 (Haruyasu Yoshizaki). It was even "used by id Software to compress installation files for their earlier games, including Doom and Quake" wikipedia.
I want to thank WaitoKon for helping me out with some transalation and discussion about that odd collection. He had to endure me babbling about it for an hour..kudos to you mate.

[RyannVonDoom]

I remember people doing this back in the mid/late 90s in high school. Pretty cool to see TM stuff. It was mostly Dragonball that I saw since that was just truly hitting the states during that time period.

[kikai ninjin]

I remember people doing this back in the mid/late 90s in high school. Pretty cool to see TM stuff. It was mostly Dragonball that I saw since that was just truly hitting the states during that time period.

Thats cool, I had never seen this before back in the day. Maybe its some kind of homemade sharing then, because of the lack of some kind of copyright mark or a Pioneer/AIC logo. Interesting nevertheless.

[Nonsuch Ned]

Eff Efferson may know more. The Notan Project was a doujinshi project:
https://tenchimuyotranslationblog.blogspot.com/p/doujinshi.html

[kikai ninjin]

Eff Efferson may know more. The Notan Project was a doujinshi project:
https://tenchimuyotranslationblog.blogspot.com/p/doujinshi.html

Interesting. But I mean, what do these floppy disks have to do with this project? 

[Eff Efferson]

Eff Efferson may know more. The Notan Project was a doujinshi project:
https://tenchimuyotranslationblog.blogspot.com/p/doujinshi.html

I know nothin

[kikai ninjin]

Eff Efferson may know more. The Notan Project was a doujinshi project:
https://tenchimuyotranslationblog.blogspot.com/p/doujinshi.html

I know nothin

[For Washuu]

Dude, that is cool.  100% cool.  I grew up with old stuff like this handed down to me (long past when it was the norm), so this hits a warm spot in my heart.  <3

[جبريل 無道]

-Are those floppy disks some kind of licenced product, or studio archive or even some homemade/fan made material?
-What's the motivation of creating, scanning or copying those files?
-Who made those and why put them on sale?
-What Notan Project has to do with them?

As we can see here, the Nontan Project was a doujin circle that had an affiliation with Masaki Kajishima.  That means in the 1990s, they were a unifying stable of multiple artists able to put enough content to print a doujin, usually for years in a row.  Which was a bit rarer back then than today, where it's all on computer.  MK might have made their cover or some pages, but didn't draw or endorse them all.

https://tenchisgirls.tumblr.com/post/155774789801/is-there-much-knowledge-out-there-regarding-the

As the text on the floppies show, they are all 640x480, which was the predominant screen resolution for most of the 90s at the time and it mentions them as wallpapers.  The OAV by that point was delivered in Laserdisc, with most people having no way to get screenshots, so this was a bonus for laptop and computer owners.

It was probably sold at Comiket alongside the doujins as an extra.

Usually discs have AIC copyright but these have none, so an unlicensed product.  I do have floppies from 1990s Tenchi or Pretty Sammy games and the labels have AIC copyright.

You found a really niche product and don't be sad about the OAV photos, even AIC lower tier official products/games have an ungodly amount of recycled art including screenshots.