From andrew at aarmstrong.org  Thu Jun  5 14:42:23 2008
From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong)
Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:42:23 +0100
Subject: [game_preservation] Nottingham Trent starting Archive
Message-ID: <4848338F.9000802@aarmstrong.org>

 From the blog:

Good news for anyone lamenting the lack of UK game archives, from the 
Gamasutra Podcast with Iain Simons 
<http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18719>:

    And he closes with Nottingham Trent University Undergraduate and
    Post-graduate programs' support of GameCity's latest project: an
    archive of early to current game artifacts and history.


I'll post more news when it becomes available, and find out for myself 
if it takes too long ;-)

At least it's one UK initiative which is a good step in the right 
direction! :-D

Andrew
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From evilcowclone at gmail.com  Thu Jun  5 21:38:09 2008
From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando)
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2008 19:38:09 -0600
Subject: [game_preservation] Nottingham Trent starting Archive
In-Reply-To: <4848338F.9000802@aarmstrong.org>
References: <4848338F.9000802@aarmstrong.org>
Message-ID: <b96706b70806051838v3100e639sae1599b8c8924277@mail.gmail.com>

Of equally impressive note is Halcyon Days (which may or may not be on the
resource list - but it definitely belongs there!)

http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/

It is a series of interviews with Atari programmers first published on
diskette in 1997 (for $20!) but now distributed for free.

-DM

On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 12:42 PM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>
wrote:

>  >From the blog:
>
> Good news for anyone lamenting the lack of UK game archives, from the Gamasutra
> Podcast with Iain Simons<http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18719>
> :
>
> And he closes with Nottingham Trent University Undergraduate and
> Post-graduate programs' support of GameCity's latest project: an archive of
> early to current game artifacts and history.
>
>
> I'll post more news when it becomes available, and find out for myself if
> it takes too long ;-)
>
> At least it's one UK initiative which is a good step in the right
> direction! :-D
>
> Andrew
>
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
>


-- 
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

"Until next time..."
Captain Commando
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From andrew at aarmstrong.org  Fri Jun  6 10:34:18 2008
From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong)
Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2008 15:34:18 +0100
Subject: [game_preservation] Nottingham Trent starting Archive
In-Reply-To: <b96706b70806051838v3100e639sae1599b8c8924277@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4848338F.9000802@aarmstrong.org>
	<b96706b70806051838v3100e639sae1599b8c8924277@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <48494AEA.7000203@aarmstrong.org>

I'll add it to the resource list. It seems the "Great list of 
programmers" was added when you suggested that, but I didn't poke around 
the site for anything else.

Interesting stuff, certainly would be more interesting if I ever owned 
an Atari console though ;-)

Andrew

Captain Commando wrote:
> Of equally impressive note is Halcyon Days (which may or may not be on 
> the resource list - but it definitely belongs there!)
>
> http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/
>
> It is a series of interviews with Atari programmers first published on 
> diskette in 1997 (for $20!) but now distributed for free.
>
> -DM
>
> On Thu, Jun 5, 2008 at 12:42 PM, Andrew Armstrong 
> <andrew at aarmstrong.org <mailto:andrew at aarmstrong.org>> wrote:
>
>     >From the blog:
>
>     Good news for anyone lamenting the lack of UK game archives, from
>     the Gamasutra Podcast with Iain Simons
>     <http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=18719>:
>
>         And he closes with Nottingham Trent University Undergraduate
>         and Post-graduate programs' support of GameCity's latest
>         project: an archive of early to current game artifacts and
>         history.
>
>
>     I'll post more news when it becomes available, and find out for
>     myself if it takes too long ;-)
>
>     At least it's one UK initiative which is a good step in the right
>     direction! :-D
>
>     Andrew
>
>     _______________________________________________
>     game_preservation mailing list
>     game_preservation at igda.org <mailto:game_preservation at igda.org>
>     http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
>
>
>
> -- 
> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.
>
> "Until next time..."
> Captain Commando
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>   
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From andrew at aarmstrong.org  Sun Jun 15 18:03:53 2008
From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:03:53 +0100
Subject: [game_preservation] Abandonware
Message-ID: <485591C9.3060909@aarmstrong.org>

Simple question: What are your opinions on abandonware 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware>?

My reason for asking is two fold; firstly, the Internet Archive does 
have a current legal right to work on preserving abandoned games hosting 
the material in a private archive (I have, however, no idea how this can 
be ever accessed, hehe), so I was going to investigate this side, which 
is more legal.

On the other side, we have a multitude of sites which are providing 
downloads of old games (sometimes with a lot of additional information) 
- some, rarely, are actually legal to distribute, while most are in 
copyrighted or in legal limbo. Apart from the most popular licences, 
most are dead and buried - the companies who made the games no longer 
exist, and much of the time there is no one to even ask about the IP.

I'd rather like to cover this area, despite it's grey legal area, rather 
then ignore it. This would only mean some more news articles where 
relevant and a listing of the relevant sites in our links directory, and 
possibly more information if I got around to researching it past what 
Wikipedia has. It might also influence future projects, who knows what 
we'll do.

Thanks for anyone's opinions on this, and of course, Henry really has 
the last say on if we'll cover it but I wanted a discussion regardless.

(Also I want more activity here since it's really good, and there's a 
lot more I should be putting up on this list, and a lot more I think 
others could put up if they thought it was worth discussing :-) ).

Andrew
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From mike at multimedia.cx  Sun Jun 15 18:14:40 2008
From: mike at multimedia.cx (Mike Melanson)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:14:40 -0700
Subject: [game_preservation] Abandonware
In-Reply-To: <485591C9.3060909@aarmstrong.org>
References: <485591C9.3060909@aarmstrong.org>
Message-ID: <48559450.1050006@multimedia.cx>

Andrew Armstrong wrote:
> Simple question: What are your opinions on abandonware 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware>?

Trixter (Jim Leonard) has thought a lot more about this than most of us:

http://www.mobygames.com/featured_article/feature,7/

He asked people with law degrees and everything.

-- 
	-Mike Melanson

From andrew at aarmstrong.org  Sun Jun 15 18:23:45 2008
From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:23:45 +0100
Subject: [game_preservation] Abandonware
In-Reply-To: <48559450.1050006@multimedia.cx>
References: <485591C9.3060909@aarmstrong.org> <48559450.1050006@multimedia.cx>
Message-ID: <48559671.2060507@aarmstrong.org>

Interesting piece (it's from 2000, I doubt much has changed apart from 
the move from Usenet/IRC to websites and the change of name to "ESA"), 
goes into a lot of detail on the American side of it, I wonder if 
parallel organisations in Europe/Asia act the same way.

However, do you personally think it is a good idea for the SIG to be 
interested at all in the area or should we ignore it or what? Should the 
sites be listed, or material gathered about what they are doing over 
time, or just ignore the phenomenon? Would it ever be "okay" to discuss 
it in detail on this mailing list, for instance, or on the IGDA forums?

Thanks for the article link in any case Mike, I should really categorise 
the Mobygames features articles into the resource list properly.

Andrew

Mike Melanson wrote:
> Trixter (Jim Leonard) has thought a lot more about this than most of us:

From trixter at oldskool.org  Sun Jun 15 18:41:28 2008
From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 17:41:28 -0500
Subject: [game_preservation] Abandonware
In-Reply-To: <485591C9.3060909@aarmstrong.org>
References: <485591C9.3060909@aarmstrong.org>
Message-ID: <48559A98.8010300@oldskool.org>

Andrew Armstrong wrote:
> Simple question: What are your opinions on abandonware 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abandonware>?

I helped form the Abandonware movement in 1996, something I'm not 
terribly proud of (because of the way it has grown and changed, not 
because of its formation).  Abandonware, in my role forming it, was 
never about trying to be legal.  It was a guerrilla-style way to ensure 
that electronic artworks were preserved, such as avant-guard titles like 
Alter Ego or Timothy Leary's Mind Mirror, which the mainstream had 
completely abandoned at that time.  "Oldwarez", if you will.  There was 
never any pretense otherwise, in my time.

The movement eventually tried to constantly justify everything it was 
doing as legal, and that contributed to me leaving the movement in a 
public capacity in late 1997.

Everything I thought about Abandonware in 2000 was summed up in an 
essay; you can read it here: 
http://www.mobygames.com/featured_article/feature,7/

> I'd rather like to cover this area, despite it's grey legal area, rather 
> then ignore it. This would only mean some more news articles where 
> relevant and a listing of the relevant sites in our links directory, and 
> possibly more information if I got around to researching it past what 
> Wikipedia has. It might also influence future projects, who knows what 
> we'll do.

My 2008 thoughts on the subject:  It's clearly illegal.  Regardless, we 
should grab everything while we can, for the eventual day -- possibly 
long after our deaths -- when it will become legal to distribute these 
works.
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)            http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project:           http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at     http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/

From trixter at oldskool.org  Sun Jun 15 18:42:38 2008
From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 17:42:38 -0500
Subject: [game_preservation] Abandonware
In-Reply-To: <48559671.2060507@aarmstrong.org>
References: <485591C9.3060909@aarmstrong.org> <48559450.1050006@multimedia.cx>
	<48559671.2060507@aarmstrong.org>
Message-ID: <48559ADE.6030803@oldskool.org>

Andrew Armstrong wrote:
> Thanks for the article link in any case Mike, I should really categorise 
> the Mobygames features articles into the resource list properly.

While I'm flattered, I don't think you'll be seeing many MobyGames 
feature articles in the future.  I think that aspect of Moby has 
atrophied.  Still, I did do legitimate research on the subject back then.
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)            http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project:           http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at     http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/

From andrew at aarmstrong.org  Sun Jun 15 18:50:29 2008
From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 23:50:29 +0100
Subject: [game_preservation] Abandonware
In-Reply-To: <48559ADE.6030803@oldskool.org>
References: <485591C9.3060909@aarmstrong.org>
	<48559450.1050006@multimedia.cx>	<48559671.2060507@aarmstrong.org>
	<48559ADE.6030803@oldskool.org>
Message-ID: <48559CB5.3010501@aarmstrong.org>

There's a large body of worthwhile research there which I had forgotten 
to put in our resources section. It is still very worthwhile, and if not 
more so due to each articles respective age. While it might have dried 
up right now, a future project for the SIG certainly will be more 
articles like those :) so maybe in the future a push can be lead to get 
a few people contributing there.

Problem is it must take a long while to properly research each article 
in any kind of depth. I presume if anyone wanted to contribute to the 
features they still could though? (you won't remove it entirely I hope!)

And your thoughts on it are noted, a shame such a mission was thwarted 
even if illegal, although it is interesting to know the past of it, 
since I had no clue (I wasn't even online in 1997). I'll keep in mind 
your view it is still worthwhile though, which I do agree with.

Andrew

Jim Leonard wrote:
> Andrew Armstrong wrote:
>> Thanks for the article link in any case Mike, I should really 
>> categorise the Mobygames features articles into the resource list 
>> properly.
>
> While I'm flattered, I don't think you'll be seeing many MobyGames 
> feature articles in the future.  I think that aspect of Moby has 
> atrophied.  Still, I did do legitimate research on the subject back then.

From lextalionis at gmail.com  Sun Jun 15 22:17:22 2008
From: lextalionis at gmail.com (Greg Boyd)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:17:22 -0400
Subject: [game_preservation] Abandonware
In-Reply-To: <48559CB5.3010501@aarmstrong.org>
References: <485591C9.3060909@aarmstrong.org> <48559450.1050006@multimedia.cx>
	<48559671.2060507@aarmstrong.org> <48559ADE.6030803@oldskool.org>
	<48559CB5.3010501@aarmstrong.org>
Message-ID: <f185c1830806151917n1c22373at9c8549bd0eefd7e7@mail.gmail.com>

I have been practicing IP law in games for a while and I teach copyright
infringement in the following way for my video game law class.  Maybe some
of this is useful here.  It certainly applies for abandonware and for
preservation generally (more for older games).

What has to happen to lose a trial on copyright infringement?

1.  You have to be doing something that "may" be infringement.

2.  The rights holder has to know about it (unlikely in abandonware).

3.  The rights holder has to be upset about it.  (often they don't care or
are happy that someone cares enough to archive a game).

PAUSE - you usually get a "cease and desist" letter here which is a chance
to get out of everything for the problem material.

4.  The rights holder has to be REALLY upset about it.  How did you answer
that C&D?  (This is short-hand for the rights holder has to send a guy like
me $50,000 bucks to get started drafting a complaint for court knowing that
a case easily runs into six figures - also unlikely for very old software
without a financial future unless it is a franchise).

5.  The rights holder then has to take you to court and actually win.
(always a coin toss with fair use and other defenses - unless you are
stupidly selling the stuff - which no one in this group would do).

Short analysis - All 5 of those things have to happen.  How unlikely is
that?

Longer, fun, analysis:

1-5 are all AND statements in logic/programming speak.  By that, I mean
something like the probability of a fair coin coming up heads is 0.5.  That
probability of that happening twice is 0.25.  The probability of it coming
up heads five times in a row is 0.5^5 or .03125.

That example is for something that is 50/50.  The probability of items 1-5
above even if you give item 1 a value of 1.0 degenerates a lot faster than a
fair coin toss.  2 and 3 alone are shockingly improbable more improbable
with abandonware.

In short, taking on a little risk may be worth it as long you understand the
risk involved.  If if it is strictly speaking infringement, what are the
damages, who is going to know, and who is going to care?  If they do care,
who is going to care enough beyond asking you to delete your archived copy
and/or stop distributing it.  That C&D letter just cost them $1,000 to
write.  They don't want to put any more money into this case either.

I am NOT saying this is 100% OK, but I am saying that rational behavior and
imperfect knowledge makes the risk of this turning into a real legal problem
for a non-profit legitimate archiver usually pretty low.

Greg

This is NOT legal advice.  Every situation is different, but these are just
some general thoughts I have about the relatively low risk of
archiving/preservation generally.

On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 6:50 PM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>
wrote:

> There's a large body of worthwhile research there which I had forgotten to
> put in our resources section. It is still very worthwhile, and if not more
> so due to each articles respective age. While it might have dried up right
> now, a future project for the SIG certainly will be more articles like those
> :) so maybe in the future a push can be lead to get a few people
> contributing there.
>
> Problem is it must take a long while to properly research each article in
> any kind of depth. I presume if anyone wanted to contribute to the features
> they still could though? (you won't remove it entirely I hope!)
>
> And your thoughts on it are noted, a shame such a mission was thwarted even
> if illegal, although it is interesting to know the past of it, since I had
> no clue (I wasn't even online in 1997). I'll keep in mind your view it is
> still worthwhile though, which I do agree with.
>
> Andrew
>
> Jim Leonard wrote:
>
>> Andrew Armstrong wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks for the article link in any case Mike, I should really categorise
>>> the Mobygames features articles into the resource list properly.
>>>
>>
>> While I'm flattered, I don't think you'll be seeing many MobyGames feature
>> articles in the future.  I think that aspect of Moby has atrophied.  Still,
>> I did do legitimate research on the subject back then.
>>
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
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From evilcowclone at gmail.com  Sun Jun 15 22:29:55 2008
From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:29:55 -0600
Subject: [game_preservation] Abandonware
In-Reply-To: <f185c1830806151917n1c22373at9c8549bd0eefd7e7@mail.gmail.com>
References: <485591C9.3060909@aarmstrong.org> <48559450.1050006@multimedia.cx>
	<48559671.2060507@aarmstrong.org> <48559ADE.6030803@oldskool.org>
	<48559CB5.3010501@aarmstrong.org>
	<f185c1830806151917n1c22373at9c8549bd0eefd7e7@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <b96706b70806151929q73c73501uc733f2b8ac45cf59@mail.gmail.com>

Wow, it's $1000 to send a cease-and-desist order? That's nuts. I thought
they could just send those out just because :P I suppose that proves a lot
of C&D orders for fan games really were just rumors.

Though I will say this: two companies that you can ALWAYS count on to send
C&D's are Fox and Disney. Disney once sued a preschool for painting a
picture of Mickey Mouse on the wall (and won o_O). Don't mess with those
guys.

-DM

On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 8:17 PM, Greg Boyd <lextalionis at gmail.com> wrote:

> I have been practicing IP law in games for a while and I teach copyright
> infringement in the following way for my video game law class.  Maybe some
> of this is useful here.  It certainly applies for abandonware and for
> preservation generally (more for older games).
>
> What has to happen to lose a trial on copyright infringement?
>
> 1.  You have to be doing something that "may" be infringement.
>
> 2.  The rights holder has to know about it (unlikely in abandonware).
>
> 3.  The rights holder has to be upset about it.  (often they don't care or
> are happy that someone cares enough to archive a game).
>
> PAUSE - you usually get a "cease and desist" letter here which is a chance
> to get out of everything for the problem material.
>
> 4.  The rights holder has to be REALLY upset about it.  How did you answer
> that C&D?  (This is short-hand for the rights holder has to send a guy like
> me $50,000 bucks to get started drafting a complaint for court knowing that
> a case easily runs into six figures - also unlikely for very old software
> without a financial future unless it is a franchise).
>
> 5.  The rights holder then has to take you to court and actually win.
> (always a coin toss with fair use and other defenses - unless you are
> stupidly selling the stuff - which no one in this group would do).
>
> Short analysis - All 5 of those things have to happen.  How unlikely is
> that?
>
> Longer, fun, analysis:
>
> 1-5 are all AND statements in logic/programming speak.  By that, I mean
> something like the probability of a fair coin coming up heads is 0.5.  That
> probability of that happening twice is 0.25.  The probability of it coming
> up heads five times in a row is 0.5^5 or .03125.
>
> That example is for something that is 50/50.  The probability of items 1-5
> above even if you give item 1 a value of 1.0 degenerates a lot faster than a
> fair coin toss.  2 and 3 alone are shockingly improbable more improbable
> with abandonware.
>
> In short, taking on a little risk may be worth it as long you understand
> the risk involved.  If if it is strictly speaking infringement, what are the
> damages, who is going to know, and who is going to care?  If they do care,
> who is going to care enough beyond asking you to delete your archived copy
> and/or stop distributing it.  That C&D letter just cost them $1,000 to
> write.  They don't want to put any more money into this case either.
>
> I am NOT saying this is 100% OK, but I am saying that rational behavior and
> imperfect knowledge makes the risk of this turning into a real legal problem
> for a non-profit legitimate archiver usually pretty low.
>
> Greg
>
> This is NOT legal advice.  Every situation is different, but these are just
> some general thoughts I have about the relatively low risk of
> archiving/preservation generally.
>
> On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 6:50 PM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>
> wrote:
>
>> There's a large body of worthwhile research there which I had forgotten to
>> put in our resources section. It is still very worthwhile, and if not more
>> so due to each articles respective age. While it might have dried up right
>> now, a future project for the SIG certainly will be more articles like those
>> :) so maybe in the future a push can be lead to get a few people
>> contributing there.
>>
>> Problem is it must take a long while to properly research each article in
>> any kind of depth. I presume if anyone wanted to contribute to the features
>> they still could though? (you won't remove it entirely I hope!)
>>
>> And your thoughts on it are noted, a shame such a mission was thwarted
>> even if illegal, although it is interesting to know the past of it, since I
>> had no clue (I wasn't even online in 1997). I'll keep in mind your view it
>> is still worthwhile though, which I do agree with.
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>> Jim Leonard wrote:
>>
>>> Andrew Armstrong wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks for the article link in any case Mike, I should really categorise
>>>> the Mobygames features articles into the resource list properly.
>>>>
>>>
>>> While I'm flattered, I don't think you'll be seeing many MobyGames
>>> feature articles in the future.  I think that aspect of Moby has atrophied.
>>>  Still, I did do legitimate research on the subject back then.
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> game_preservation mailing list
>> game_preservation at igda.org
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
>


-- 
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

"Until next time..."
Captain Commando
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From simon at archive.org  Sun Jun 15 23:28:36 2008
From: simon at archive.org (Simon Carless)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:28:36 -0700
Subject: [game_preservation] Abandonware
In-Reply-To: <48559CB5.3010501@aarmstrong.org>
References: <485591C9.3060909@aarmstrong.org> <48559450.1050006@multimedia.cx>
	<48559671.2060507@aarmstrong.org> <48559ADE.6030803@oldskool.org>
	<48559CB5.3010501@aarmstrong.org>
Message-ID: <2b19faf60806152028h29d19211yb23250784348c076@mail.gmail.com>

Here's a post I made on the most recent renewal of the DMCA exemption for
abandonware - but as Andrew notes, this only applies to libraries/archival
institutions:

http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/11/dmca_exemption_for_game_archiv.php

This abandonware question seems to go round and round on the SIG from time
to time, and the answer, I think, is simple. Leave the abandonware work to
the crazily committed grey market orgs such as TOSEC:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSEC

For those who haven't seen, it's basically the best index of games with
associated ROMs ever created - here's a recent .DAT file:

http://www.tosec.org/userfiles/Complete_(TOSEC-v2007-03-14_CM).zip

Needless to say, you can find the complete sets on various torrent sites,
and I don't really believe they are in danger of being lost. It would be
nice for official archives to keep copies of them, but that would mean the
archive would have to have physical copies of each of the games, of course.

The problem with abandonware is that many people are willing and happy to
stretch the concept of abandonware to any out of print game, no matter if it
has commercial value or not.

So maybe the SIG should cover and even archive the DATs from TOSEC,
abstractly. Since that's just metadata. Just no linking to Home Of The
Underdogs pages, etc.

s!

On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>
wrote:

> There's a large body of worthwhile research there which I had forgotten to
> put in our resources section. It is still very worthwhile, and if not more
> so due to each articles respective age. While it might have dried up right
> now, a future project for the SIG certainly will be more articles like those
> :) so maybe in the future a push can be lead to get a few people
> contributing there.
>
> Problem is it must take a long while to properly research each article in
> any kind of depth. I presume if anyone wanted to contribute to the features
> they still could though? (you won't remove it entirely I hope!)
>
> And your thoughts on it are noted, a shame such a mission was thwarted even
> if illegal, although it is interesting to know the past of it, since I had
> no clue (I wasn't even online in 1997). I'll keep in mind your view it is
> still worthwhile though, which I do agree with.
>
> Andrew
>
> Jim Leonard wrote:
>
>> Andrew Armstrong wrote:
>>
>>> Thanks for the article link in any case Mike, I should really categorise
>>> the Mobygames features articles into the resource list properly.
>>>
>>
>> While I'm flattered, I don't think you'll be seeing many MobyGames feature
>> articles in the future.  I think that aspect of Moby has atrophied.  Still,
>> I did do legitimate research on the subject back then.
>>
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
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From evilcowclone at gmail.com  Sun Jun 15 23:49:09 2008
From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 21:49:09 -0600
Subject: [game_preservation] Abandonware
In-Reply-To: <2b19faf60806152028h29d19211yb23250784348c076@mail.gmail.com>
References: <485591C9.3060909@aarmstrong.org> <48559450.1050006@multimedia.cx>
	<48559671.2060507@aarmstrong.org> <48559ADE.6030803@oldskool.org>
	<48559CB5.3010501@aarmstrong.org>
	<2b19faf60806152028h29d19211yb23250784348c076@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <b96706b70806152049u6d86dd8ajcfad8618d50757cf@mail.gmail.com>

Wow, that list is pretty amazing. Thanks for sharing! Out of curiosity, how
much space does all this software take up? I don't see any 'meta-metadata'
regarding that, but it was a question regarding the feasibility of actually
archiving all this stuff onto hard drives, digital tape, or optical media
for long-term storage. Obviously this doesn't include every single piece of
software made for those platforms though...

-DM

On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 9:28 PM, Simon Carless <simon at archive.org> wrote:

> Here's a post I made on the most recent renewal of the DMCA exemption for
> abandonware - but as Andrew notes, this only applies to libraries/archival
> institutions:
>
> http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/11/dmca_exemption_for_game_archiv.php
>
> This abandonware question seems to go round and round on the SIG from time
> to time, and the answer, I think, is simple. Leave the abandonware work to
> the crazily committed grey market orgs such as TOSEC:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSEC
>
> For those who haven't seen, it's basically the best index of games with
> associated ROMs ever created - here's a recent .DAT file:
>
> http://www.tosec.org/userfiles/Complete_(TOSEC-v2007-03-14_CM).zip<http://www.tosec.org/userfiles/Complete_%28TOSEC-v2007-03-14_CM%29.zip>
>
> Needless to say, you can find the complete sets on various torrent sites,
> and I don't really believe they are in danger of being lost. It would be
> nice for official archives to keep copies of them, but that would mean the
> archive would have to have physical copies of each of the games, of course.
>
> The problem with abandonware is that many people are willing and happy to
> stretch the concept of abandonware to any out of print game, no matter if it
> has commercial value or not.
>
> So maybe the SIG should cover and even archive the DATs from TOSEC,
> abstractly. Since that's just metadata. Just no linking to Home Of The
> Underdogs pages, etc.
>
> s!
>
> On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>
> wrote:
>
>> There's a large body of worthwhile research there which I had forgotten to
>> put in our resources section. It is still very worthwhile, and if not more
>> so due to each articles respective age. While it might have dried up right
>> now, a future project for the SIG certainly will be more articles like those
>> :) so maybe in the future a push can be lead to get a few people
>> contributing there.
>>
>> Problem is it must take a long while to properly research each article in
>> any kind of depth. I presume if anyone wanted to contribute to the features
>> they still could though? (you won't remove it entirely I hope!)
>>
>> And your thoughts on it are noted, a shame such a mission was thwarted
>> even if illegal, although it is interesting to know the past of it, since I
>> had no clue (I wasn't even online in 1997). I'll keep in mind your view it
>> is still worthwhile though, which I do agree with.
>>
>> Andrew
>>
>> Jim Leonard wrote:
>>
>>> Andrew Armstrong wrote:
>>>
>>>> Thanks for the article link in any case Mike, I should really categorise
>>>> the Mobygames features articles into the resource list properly.
>>>>
>>>
>>> While I'm flattered, I don't think you'll be seeing many MobyGames
>>> feature articles in the future.  I think that aspect of Moby has atrophied.
>>>  Still, I did do legitimate research on the subject back then.
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> game_preservation mailing list
>> game_preservation at igda.org
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
>


-- 
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

"Until next time..."
Captain Commando
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From simon at archive.org  Sun Jun 15 23:54:20 2008
From: simon at archive.org (Simon Carless)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 20:54:20 -0700
Subject: [game_preservation] Abandonware
In-Reply-To: <b96706b70806152049u6d86dd8ajcfad8618d50757cf@mail.gmail.com>
References: <485591C9.3060909@aarmstrong.org> <48559450.1050006@multimedia.cx>
	<48559671.2060507@aarmstrong.org> <48559ADE.6030803@oldskool.org>
	<48559CB5.3010501@aarmstrong.org>
	<2b19faf60806152028h29d19211yb23250784348c076@mail.gmail.com>
	<b96706b70806152049u6d86dd8ajcfad8618d50757cf@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2b19faf60806152054rf6b662cy87701270c83835d4@mail.gmail.com>

 It's anywhere between tens of megabytes to tens of gigabytes, I believe. 1
terabytes hard drives are less than $200 nowadays, so shouldn't be a big
problem :)

s!

On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 8:49 PM, Captain Commando <evilcowclone at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Wow, that list is pretty amazing. Thanks for sharing! Out of curiosity, how
> much space does all this software take up? I don't see any 'meta-metadata'
> regarding that, but it was a question regarding the feasibility of actually
> archiving all this stuff onto hard drives, digital tape, or optical media
> for long-term storage. Obviously this doesn't include every single piece of
> software made for those platforms though...
>
> -DM
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 9:28 PM, Simon Carless <simon at archive.org> wrote:
>
>> Here's a post I made on the most recent renewal of the DMCA exemption for
>> abandonware - but as Andrew notes, this only applies to libraries/archival
>> institutions:
>>
>> http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/11/dmca_exemption_for_game_archiv.php
>>
>> This abandonware question seems to go round and round on the SIG from time
>> to time, and the answer, I think, is simple. Leave the abandonware work to
>> the crazily committed grey market orgs such as TOSEC:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSEC
>>
>> For those who haven't seen, it's basically the best index of games with
>> associated ROMs ever created - here's a recent .DAT file:
>>
>> http://www.tosec.org/userfiles/Complete_(TOSEC-v2007-03-14_CM).zip<http://www.tosec.org/userfiles/Complete_%28TOSEC-v2007-03-14_CM%29.zip>
>>
>> Needless to say, you can find the complete sets on various torrent sites,
>> and I don't really believe they are in danger of being lost. It would be
>> nice for official archives to keep copies of them, but that would mean the
>> archive would have to have physical copies of each of the games, of course.
>>
>> The problem with abandonware is that many people are willing and happy to
>> stretch the concept of abandonware to any out of print game, no matter if it
>> has commercial value or not.
>>
>> So maybe the SIG should cover and even archive the DATs from TOSEC,
>> abstractly. Since that's just metadata. Just no linking to Home Of The
>> Underdogs pages, etc.
>>
>> s!
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> There's a large body of worthwhile research there which I had forgotten
>>> to put in our resources section. It is still very worthwhile, and if not
>>> more so due to each articles respective age. While it might have dried up
>>> right now, a future project for the SIG certainly will be more articles like
>>> those :) so maybe in the future a push can be lead to get a few people
>>> contributing there.
>>>
>>> Problem is it must take a long while to properly research each article in
>>> any kind of depth. I presume if anyone wanted to contribute to the features
>>> they still could though? (you won't remove it entirely I hope!)
>>>
>>> And your thoughts on it are noted, a shame such a mission was thwarted
>>> even if illegal, although it is interesting to know the past of it, since I
>>> had no clue (I wasn't even online in 1997). I'll keep in mind your view it
>>> is still worthwhile though, which I do agree with.
>>>
>>> Andrew
>>>
>>> Jim Leonard wrote:
>>>
>>>> Andrew Armstrong wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Thanks for the article link in any case Mike, I should really
>>>>> categorise the Mobygames features articles into the resource list properly.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> While I'm flattered, I don't think you'll be seeing many MobyGames
>>>> feature articles in the future.  I think that aspect of Moby has atrophied.
>>>>  Still, I did do legitimate research on the subject back then.
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> game_preservation mailing list
>>> game_preservation at igda.org
>>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> game_preservation mailing list
>> game_preservation at igda.org
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.
>
> "Until next time..."
> Captain Commando
>
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
>
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From evilcowclone at gmail.com  Mon Jun 16 00:05:27 2008
From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2008 22:05:27 -0600
Subject: [game_preservation] Abandonware
In-Reply-To: <2b19faf60806152054rf6b662cy87701270c83835d4@mail.gmail.com>
References: <485591C9.3060909@aarmstrong.org> <48559450.1050006@multimedia.cx>
	<48559671.2060507@aarmstrong.org> <48559ADE.6030803@oldskool.org>
	<48559CB5.3010501@aarmstrong.org>
	<2b19faf60806152028h29d19211yb23250784348c076@mail.gmail.com>
	<b96706b70806152049u6d86dd8ajcfad8618d50757cf@mail.gmail.com>
	<2b19faf60806152054rf6b662cy87701270c83835d4@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <b96706b70806152105l63c368cfgafe91d0b205998bc@mail.gmail.com>

That's right! Man, I remember back in the old days when I saw my first 1TB
hard drive ever... On this TechTV show called 'The Screen Sniffers'. :P

(Kudos to anybody who recognized that episode)

-DM

On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 9:54 PM, Simon Carless <simon at archive.org> wrote:

>  It's anywhere between tens of megabytes to tens of gigabytes, I believe. 1
> terabytes hard drives are less than $200 nowadays, so shouldn't be a big
> problem :)
>
> s!
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 8:49 PM, Captain Commando <evilcowclone at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Wow, that list is pretty amazing. Thanks for sharing! Out of curiosity,
>> how much space does all this software take up? I don't see any
>> 'meta-metadata' regarding that, but it was a question regarding the
>> feasibility of actually archiving all this stuff onto hard drives, digital
>> tape, or optical media for long-term storage. Obviously this doesn't include
>> every single piece of software made for those platforms though...
>>
>> -DM
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 9:28 PM, Simon Carless <simon at archive.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Here's a post I made on the most recent renewal of the DMCA exemption for
>>> abandonware - but as Andrew notes, this only applies to libraries/archival
>>> institutions:
>>>
>>> http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2006/11/dmca_exemption_for_game_archiv.php
>>>
>>> This abandonware question seems to go round and round on the SIG from
>>> time to time, and the answer, I think, is simple. Leave the abandonware work
>>> to the crazily committed grey market orgs such as TOSEC:
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOSEC
>>>
>>> For those who haven't seen, it's basically the best index of games with
>>> associated ROMs ever created - here's a recent .DAT file:
>>>
>>> http://www.tosec.org/userfiles/Complete_(TOSEC-v2007-03-14_CM).zip<http://www.tosec.org/userfiles/Complete_%28TOSEC-v2007-03-14_CM%29.zip>
>>>
>>> Needless to say, you can find the complete sets on various torrent sites,
>>> and I don't really believe they are in danger of being lost. It would be
>>> nice for official archives to keep copies of them, but that would mean the
>>> archive would have to have physical copies of each of the games, of course.
>>>
>>> The problem with abandonware is that many people are willing and happy to
>>> stretch the concept of abandonware to any out of print game, no matter if it
>>> has commercial value or not.
>>>
>>> So maybe the SIG should cover and even archive the DATs from TOSEC,
>>> abstractly. Since that's just metadata. Just no linking to Home Of The
>>> Underdogs pages, etc.
>>>
>>> s!
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jun 15, 2008 at 3:50 PM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> There's a large body of worthwhile research there which I had forgotten
>>>> to put in our resources section. It is still very worthwhile, and if not
>>>> more so due to each articles respective age. While it might have dried up
>>>> right now, a future project for the SIG certainly will be more articles like
>>>> those :) so maybe in the future a push can be lead to get a few people
>>>> contributing there.
>>>>
>>>> Problem is it must take a long while to properly research each article
>>>> in any kind of depth. I presume if anyone wanted to contribute to the
>>>> features they still could though? (you won't remove it entirely I hope!)
>>>>
>>>> And your thoughts on it are noted, a shame such a mission was thwarted
>>>> even if illegal, although it is interesting to know the past of it, since I
>>>> had no clue (I wasn't even online in 1997). I'll keep in mind your view it
>>>> is still worthwhile though, which I do agree with.
>>>>
>>>> Andrew
>>>>
>>>> Jim Leonard wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Andrew Armstrong wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks for the article link in any case Mike, I should really
>>>>>> categorise the Mobygames features articles into the resource list properly.
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> While I'm flattered, I don't think you'll be seeing many MobyGames
>>>>> feature articles in the future.  I think that aspect of Moby has atrophied.
>>>>>  Still, I did do legitimate research on the subject back then.
>>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> game_preservation mailing list
>>>> game_preservation at igda.org
>>>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> game_preservation mailing list
>>> game_preservation at igda.org
>>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.
>>
>> "Until next time..."
>> Captain Commando
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> game_preservation mailing list
>> game_preservation at igda.org
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
>


-- 
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

"Until next time..."
Captain Commando
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From trixter at oldskool.org  Mon Jun 16 02:08:29 2008
From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2008 01:08:29 -0500
Subject: [game_preservation] Abandonware
In-Reply-To: <f185c1830806151917n1c22373at9c8549bd0eefd7e7@mail.gmail.com>
References: <485591C9.3060909@aarmstrong.org>
	<48559450.1050006@multimedia.cx>	<48559671.2060507@aarmstrong.org>
	<48559ADE.6030803@oldskool.org>	<48559CB5.3010501@aarmstrong.org>
	<f185c1830806151917n1c22373at9c8549bd0eefd7e7@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4856035D.8000202@oldskool.org>

Greg Boyd wrote:
> 2.  The rights holder has to know about it (unlikely in abandonware).

My abandonware site was the first ever to receive a cease and desist 
notice (from the IDSA, as they were known back then).  That was in 1997, 
so I would assume they definitely know about it.

> 3.  The rights holder has to be upset about it.  (often they don't care 
> or are happy that someone cares enough to archive a game).

This is definitely not the case for Nintendo or EA, I have seen them go 
after even the slightest infringement (aka ROMs).

> I am NOT saying this is 100% OK, but I am saying that rational behavior 
> and imperfect knowledge makes the risk of this turning into a real legal 
> problem for a non-profit legitimate archiver usually pretty low. 

I agree, which is why I never had any pretenses starting the abandonware 
movement.  Sending out a C&D letter is cheap, but after that, like you 
said it's from $4K to $50K to take it to the next step and most 
abandonware infringement doesn't warrant that kind of cost.
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)            http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project:           http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at     http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/

From zvowell at austin.utexas.edu  Mon Jun 23 10:10:24 2008
From: zvowell at austin.utexas.edu (Vowell, Zachary W)
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:10:24 -0500
Subject: [game_preservation] Game preservation research news, etc.
Message-ID: <C4851900.1249%zvowell@austin.utexas.edu>


Hello everyone--
Well, I thought I'd finally introduce myself to the list and quit lurking,
so.... my name's Zach, and I work as the archivist for the UT Videogame
Archive in Austin, TX.  It's been so helpful to listen in on the list's
discussions of problems/challenges facing the preservation of games and
their history, and here's hoping I can contribute a little more to those
discussions in the future.

Plus I had a piece of news that might be of interest.  A professor here at
UT (Univ. of Texas) has received a grant from the Institute of Museum and
Library Services (IMLS) for a research project entitled: "Video Games and
the Cultural Record: Studying the Creation Processes and Artifacts of the
Video Game Industry for the Purpose of Collection and Preservation."

I'll be involved, because the Videogame Archive is serving as the repository
of record for the project-- the grant stipulates that a project must partner
up with a repository.  From what I know, the prof., Megan Winget, will be
interviewing a lot of videogame professionals as part of the project (the
interviews eventually ending up in the archive), and there will probably be
other valuable by-products of the project, aside from, you know, her
findings.

That's all for now.  I included a longer description of the project below if
anyone's interested.  Best--


--
Zach Vowell
Archivist, UT Videogame Archive
Center for American History
zvowell at austin.utexas.edu
http://www.utvideogamearchive.org




"This Early Career Development grant will provide support for Assistant
Professor Megan Winget to study the collection and preservation of
'massively multiplayer online' (MMO) games. Currently, preservation models
for many types of digital creations focus on the end product, resulting in
the loss of most of the artifacts from the creative process. This becomes
especially problematic as an increasing number of digital products have no
definite completion. Using ethnographic research techniques, Dr. Winget will
seek to better understand the video game industry's methods, behaviors, and
attitudes for the purpose of building more meaningful models of collection
and preservation of complex, community-built digital creations. This
research carries the promise of informing a wide array of issues in digital
preservation, from digital media art to immersive learning environments."

From andrew at aarmstrong.org  Mon Jun 23 10:25:32 2008
From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong)
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 15:25:32 +0100
Subject: [game_preservation] Game preservation research news, etc.
In-Reply-To: <C4851900.1249%zvowell@austin.utexas.edu>
References: <C4851900.1249%zvowell@austin.utexas.edu>
Message-ID: <485FB25C.50508@aarmstrong.org>

Sounds awesome Zach, and glad you could join in the mailing list as well :)

Keep us all posted on the developments of the project, too. It'll be 
good to know what's going down at the UT archive as you wrok on it as 
well :-)

Andrew

Vowell, Zachary W wrote:
> Hello everyone--
> Well, I thought I'd finally introduce myself to the list and quit lurking,
> so.... my name's Zach, and I work as the archivist for the UT Videogame
> Archive in Austin, TX.  It's been so helpful to listen in on the list's
> discussions of problems/challenges facing the preservation of games and
> their history, and here's hoping I can contribute a little more to those
> discussions in the future.
>
> Plus I had a piece of news that might be of interest.  A professor here at
> UT (Univ. of Texas) has received a grant from the Institute of Museum and
> Library Services (IMLS) for a research project entitled: "Video Games and
> the Cultural Record: Studying the Creation Processes and Artifacts of the
> Video Game Industry for the Purpose of Collection and Preservation."
>
> I'll be involved, because the Videogame Archive is serving as the repository
> of record for the project-- the grant stipulates that a project must partner
> up with a repository.  From what I know, the prof., Megan Winget, will be
> interviewing a lot of videogame professionals as part of the project (the
> interviews eventually ending up in the archive), and there will probably be
> other valuable by-products of the project, aside from, you know, her
> findings.
>
> That's all for now.  I included a longer description of the project below if
> anyone's interested.  Best--
>
>
> --
> Zach Vowell
> Archivist, UT Videogame Archive
> Center for American History
> zvowell at austin.utexas.edu
> http://www.utvideogamearchive.org
>
>
>
>
> "This Early Career Development grant will provide support for Assistant
> Professor Megan Winget to study the collection and preservation of
> 'massively multiplayer online' (MMO) games. Currently, preservation models
> for many types of digital creations focus on the end product, resulting in
> the loss of most of the artifacts from the creative process. This becomes
> especially problematic as an increasing number of digital products have no
> definite completion. Using ethnographic research techniques, Dr. Winget will
> seek to better understand the video game industry's methods, behaviors, and
> attitudes for the purpose of building more meaningful models of collection
> and preservation of complex, community-built digital creations. This
> research carries the promise of informing a wide array of issues in digital
> preservation, from digital media art to immersive learning environments."
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>   

From zvowell at austin.utexas.edu  Mon Jun 23 10:43:56 2008
From: zvowell at austin.utexas.edu (Vowell, Zachary W)
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:43:56 -0500
Subject: [game_preservation] Game preservation research news, etc.
In-Reply-To: <485FB25C.50508@aarmstrong.org>
Message-ID: <C48520DC.124E%zvowell@austin.utexas.edu>

Will do, Andrew- we're working on redesigning our website so as to be easily updated, & there'll be news posted there from this project & from other aspects of the archive as well.


On 6/23/08 9:25 AM, "Andrew Armstrong" <andrew at aarmstrong.org> wrote:

Sounds awesome Zach, and glad you could join in the mailing list as well :)

Keep us all posted on the developments of the project, too. It'll be
good to know what's going down at the UT archive as you wrok on it as
well :-)

Andrew

Vowell, Zachary W wrote:
> Hello everyone--
> Well, I thought I'd finally introduce myself to the list and quit lurking,
> so.... my name's Zach, and I work as the archivist for the UT Videogame
> Archive in Austin, TX.  It's been so helpful to listen in on the list's
> discussions of problems/challenges facing the preservation of games and
> their history, and here's hoping I can contribute a little more to those
> discussions in the future.
>
> Plus I had a piece of news that might be of interest.  A professor here at
> UT (Univ. of Texas) has received a grant from the Institute of Museum and
> Library Services (IMLS) for a research project entitled: "Video Games and
> the Cultural Record: Studying the Creation Processes and Artifacts of the
> Video Game Industry for the Purpose of Collection and Preservation."
>
> I'll be involved, because the Videogame Archive is serving as the repository
> of record for the project-- the grant stipulates that a project must partner
> up with a repository.  From what I know, the prof., Megan Winget, will be
> interviewing a lot of videogame professionals as part of the project (the
> interviews eventually ending up in the archive), and there will probably be
> other valuable by-products of the project, aside from, you know, her
> findings.
>
> That's all for now.  I included a longer description of the project below if
> anyone's interested.  Best--
>
>
> --
> Zach Vowell
> Archivist, UT Videogame Archive
> Center for American History
> zvowell at austin.utexas.edu
> http://www.utvideogamearchive.org
>
>
>
>
> "This Early Career Development grant will provide support for Assistant
> Professor Megan Winget to study the collection and preservation of
> 'massively multiplayer online' (MMO) games. Currently, preservation models
> for many types of digital creations focus on the end product, resulting in
> the loss of most of the artifacts from the creative process. This becomes
> especially problematic as an increasing number of digital products have no
> definite completion. Using ethnographic research techniques, Dr. Winget will
> seek to better understand the video game industry's methods, behaviors, and
> attitudes for the purpose of building more meaningful models of collection
> and preservation of complex, community-built digital creations. This
> research carries the promise of informing a wide array of issues in digital
> preservation, from digital media art to immersive learning environments."
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
_______________________________________________
game_preservation mailing list
game_preservation at igda.org
http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation


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From evilcowclone at gmail.com  Mon Jun 23 21:21:00 2008
From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando)
Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:21:00 -0600
Subject: [game_preservation] IGDA Memorials Project has launched!
Message-ID: <b96706b70806231821k3a013a53odb979e44c1c0113c@mail.gmail.com>

Hello all,

We just launched the IGDA Memorials Project officially and I've already
started to get some great feedback on the site. Jason has been particularly
pleased with our progress. Please check the wiki if you haven't already:

www.igda.org/wiki/Memorials

Andrew has been working on materials organization for the Wiki, so he's the
tech guy. I have been keeping the conversation between Andrew, Henry, and
myself for easier communication to help the project get running more
smoothly. The name was changed from the Game Developer Memorials Project to
the IGDA Memorials Project as we felt it emphasized that this was an IGDA
project. The project is launched as part of the Game Preservation SIG, so we
didn't have to bother creating a new SIG. In addition, I posted an article
in this month's IGDA newsletter so we'll be trying to coordinate with
chapters from all over the world (though for some reason, I haven't received
the newsletter yet!). We also have an official contact e-mail, which
forwards to my DU account: memorials at igda.org .

If anyone has materials they wish to contribute, please let me or Andrew
know. I am currently working on the memorial for Alan Kotok, but I have an
absolutely incredible amount of information on him so it will take some
time.

Here is a copy of the letter for discussion:


Game Developer Memorials Project

The IGDA Game Preservation SIG is launching the IGDA Memorials Project to
remember the lives and work of members of the Game Industry. The Memorials
Project contains biographies of professionals from around the world, and is
welcome to anyone who worked on a game or with the Industry in the past. In
addition, because we believe the IGDA stands for more than just videogames,
there are Memorials for designers of paper-based games, as well as notable
individuals from the toy industry, critical game studies, and computer
science, whose work has greatly affected the ways in which we understand,
play, and design our games.

It is our firm intent that the IGDA Memorials Project will help the IGDA
build our international community and demonstrate our seriousness as an
industry and an art form that cares deeply about its individuals and their
contribution to the medium. We recognize our community as being a continuous
line of individuals stretching from the past and into the future rather than
as being defined solely by the latest titles on the wall. We should remember
these individuals as people whose creative passions helped shape the medium
to become what it is today and whose legacy continues to direct where it
will go in the future.

The IGDA Memorials Project welcomes participation from members of the
community to help celebrate the memories of our own. Most Memorials provide
the option for members to post eulogies regarding their own personal
experiences with and memories of a person they knew or whose work they cared
deeply about. We are also interested in hearing about other developers whose
Memorials are not already on our site. If you are interested in
participating in the IGDA Memorials Project, please visit our Submission
Guidelines page ( http://www.igda.org/wiki/Memorials/Submission_Guidelines )
or contact memorials at igda.org.

Devin Monnens
IGDA Game Preservation SIG
IGDA Memorials Project
University of Denver


-- 
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

"Until next time..."
Captain Commando
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From info at fadresearch.com  Tue Jun 24 10:41:49 2008
From: info at fadresearch.com (Info)
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 10:41:49 -0400
Subject: [game_preservation] Edited copy - IGDA Memorials Project Letter
Message-ID: <6.2.3.4.2.20080624102746.04a5dc40@pop.primus.ca>

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From lowood at stanford.edu  Tue Jun 24 19:37:21 2008
From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood)
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 16:37:21 -0700
Subject: [game_preservation] Edited copy - IGDA Memorials Project Letter
In-Reply-To: <6.2.3.4.2.20080624102746.04a5dc40@pop.primus.ca>
References: <6.2.3.4.2.20080624102746.04a5dc40@pop.primus.ca>
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20080624163638.053c3538@stanford.edu>

Devin,

the text looks good (very good) to me.

Henry

At 07:41 AM 6/24/2008, you wrote:

>I respectfully submit this edited copy of the cover letter for consideration:
>
>>The IGDA Game Preservation SIG is launching the IGDA Memorials 
>>Project to commemorate the lives and work of past members of the 
>>Game Industry. The Memorials Project contains biographies of 
>>professionals from around the world and is available to anyone who 
>>worked on a game or with the Industry in the past. In addition, 
>>because we believe the IGDA stands for more than just videogames, 
>>there are Memorials for designers of paper-based games, as well as 
>>for notable individuals from the toy industry, researchers and 
>>computer scientists whose work has greatly affected the ways in 
>>which we understand, play, and design our games.
>>
>>It is our conviction that the IGDA Memorials Project will help the 
>>IGDA build our international community and will create an awareness 
>>for our art form by giving it an expanded sense of history.  We 
>>recognize our community as being a continuum of individuals 
>>stretching from the past to the present day and as such we wish to 
>>celebrate the achievements of those who have made important 
>>contributions to the evolution of the Game Industry.  The IGDA 
>>Memorials Project will serve to remind us of the achievements and 
>>creative passions of the people who have helped shape the medium 
>>into what it is today and whose legacy continues to inspire where 
>>we will take it in the future.
>>
>>The IGDA Memorials Project welcomes participation from members of 
>>the community to help celebrate the memories of our own. Most 
>>Memorials provide the option for members to post eulogies regarding 
>>their own personal experiences with and memories of a person they 
>>knew or whose work they cared deeply about. We are also interested 
>>in hearing about other developers whose Memorials are not already 
>>on our site. If you are interested in participating in the IGDA 
>>Memorials Project, please visit our Submission Guidelines page ( 
>><http://www.igda.org/wiki/Memorials/Submission_Guidelines>http://www.igda.org/wiki/Memorials/Submission_Guidelines 
>>) or contact <mailto:memorials at igda.org>memorials at igda.org.
>>
>>Devin Monnens
>>IGDA Game Preservation SIG
>>IGDA Memorials Project
>>University of Denver
>
>Sam Punnett
>FAD Research
>_______________________________________________
>game_preservation mailing list
>game_preservation at igda.org
>http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation

Henry Lowood, Ph.D.
Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;
  Film & Media Collections
HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
Stanford University Libraries
Stanford CA 94305-6004
650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood 
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From andrew at aarmstrong.org  Tue Jun 24 20:06:53 2008
From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 01:06:53 +0100
Subject: [game_preservation] Edited copy - IGDA Memorials Project Letter
In-Reply-To: <6.2.5.6.2.20080624163638.053c3538@stanford.edu>
References: <6.2.3.4.2.20080624102746.04a5dc40@pop.primus.ca>
	<6.2.5.6.2.20080624163638.053c3538@stanford.edu>
Message-ID: <48618C1D.5080508@aarmstrong.org>

That's one "Sam" who edited it Henry :)

Shall I put it up on the Wiki? could do with going on the front page 
really, I guess. Devin, your call.

And glad someone is interested in the project ;-) it's not for nothing 
at least :-)

Andrew

Henry Lowood wrote:
> Devin,
>
> the text looks good (very good) to me.
>
> Henry
>
> At 07:41 AM 6/24/2008, you wrote:
>
>> I respectfully submit this edited copy of the cover letter for 
>> consideration:
>>
>>> The IGDA Game Preservation SIG is launching the IGDA Memorials 
>>> Project to commemorate the lives and work of past members of the 
>>> Game Industry. The Memorials Project contains biographies of 
>>> professionals from around the world and is available to anyone who 
>>> worked on a game or with the Industry in the past. In addition, 
>>> because we believe the IGDA stands for more than just videogames, 
>>> there are Memorials for designers of paper-based games, as well as 
>>> for notable individuals from the toy industry, researchers and 
>>> computer scientists whose work has greatly affected the ways in 
>>> which we understand, play, and design our games.
>>>
>>> It is our conviction that the IGDA Memorials Project will help the 
>>> IGDA build our international community and will create an awareness 
>>> for our art form by giving it an expanded sense of history.  We 
>>> recognize our community as being a continuum of individuals 
>>> stretching from the past to the present day and as such we wish to 
>>> celebrate the achievements of those who have made important 
>>> contributions to the evolution of the Game Industry.  The IGDA 
>>> Memorials Project will serve to remind us of the achievements and 
>>> creative passions of the people who have helped shape the medium 
>>> into what it is today and whose legacy continues to inspire where we 
>>> will take it in the future.
>>>
>>> The IGDA Memorials Project welcomes participation from members of 
>>> the community to help celebrate the memories of our own. Most 
>>> Memorials provide the option for members to post eulogies regarding 
>>> their own personal experiences with and memories of a person they 
>>> knew or whose work they cared deeply about. We are also interested 
>>> in hearing about other developers whose Memorials are not already on 
>>> our site. If you are interested in participating in the IGDA 
>>> Memorials Project, please visit our Submission Guidelines page ( 
>>> http://www.igda.org/wiki/Memorials/Submission_Guidelines ) or 
>>> contact memorials at igda.org <mailto:memorials at igda.org>.
>>>
>>> Devin Monnens
>>> IGDA Game Preservation SIG
>>> IGDA Memorials Project
>>> University of Denver 
>>
>> Sam Punnett
>> FAD Research
>> _______________________________________________
>> game_preservation mailing list
>> game_preservation at igda.org
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation 
>
> Henry Lowood, Ph.D.
> Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;
>  Film & Media Collections
> HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
> Stanford University Libraries
> Stanford CA 94305-6004
> 650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood 
> <http://www.stanford.edu/%7Elowood>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>   
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From evilcowclone at gmail.com  Tue Jun 24 20:15:37 2008
From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando)
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 18:15:37 -0600
Subject: [game_preservation] Edited copy - IGDA Memorials Project Letter
In-Reply-To: <48618C1D.5080508@aarmstrong.org>
References: <6.2.3.4.2.20080624102746.04a5dc40@pop.primus.ca>
	<6.2.5.6.2.20080624163638.053c3538@stanford.edu>
	<48618C1D.5080508@aarmstrong.org>
Message-ID: <b96706b70806241715h766829aao8372f1b0930a5549@mail.gmail.com>

Incidentally, I wasn't able to tell what edits were made :)
However, the IGDA newsletter version is different from the one that I sent.
Speaking of which, SURELY the IGDA Games Preservation SIG has a complete
collection of all IGDA Newsletters ever mailed? :)

===================================
1: Game Developer Memorials Project
===================================
The IGDA's Game Preservation SIG is launching the IGDA Memorials
Project to remember the lives and work of members of the game
industry. The Memorials Project contains biographies of professionals
from around the world, and is welcome to anyone who worked on a game
or with the Industry in the past.

http://www.igda.org/wiki/Memorials/

In addition, because we believe the IGDA stands for more than just
video games, there are Memorials for designers of paper-based games,
as well as notable individuals from the toy industry, critical game
studies, and computer science, whose work has greatly affected the
ways in which we understand, play, and design our games.

It is our firm intent that the IGDA Memorials Project will help
demonstrate our seriousness as an industry and an art form that cares
deeply about its individuals and their contribution to the medium. We
recognize our community as being a continuous line of individuals
stretching from the past and into the future rather than as being
defined solely by the latest titles on the wall. We should remember
these individuals as people whose creative passions helped shape the
medium to become what it is today and whose legacy continues to direct
where it will go in the future.

The IGDA Memorials Project welcomes participation from members of the
community to help celebrate the memories of our own. Most Memorials
provide the option for members to post eulogies regarding their own
personal experiences with and memories of a person they knew or whose
work they cared deeply about. We are also interested in hearing about
other developers whose Memorials are not already on the site. If you
are interested in participating in the IGDA Memorials Project, please
visit our Submission Guidelines page or contact memorials at igda.org.

http://www.igda.org/wiki/Memorials/Submission_Guidelines



On Tue, Jun 24, 2008 at 6:06 PM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>
wrote:

>  That's one "Sam" who edited it Henry :)
>
> Shall I put it up on the Wiki? could do with going on the front page
> really, I guess. Devin, your call.
>
> And glad someone is interested in the project ;-) it's not for nothing at
> least :-)
>
> Andrew
>
> Henry Lowood wrote:
>
> Devin,
>
> the text looks good (very good) to me.
>
> Henry
>
> At 07:41 AM 6/24/2008, you wrote:
>
>  I respectfully submit this edited copy of the cover letter for
> consideration:
>
>  The IGDA Game Preservation SIG is launching the IGDA Memorials Project to
> commemorate the lives and work of past members of the Game Industry. The
> Memorials Project contains biographies of professionals from around the
> world and is available to anyone who worked on a game or with the Industry
> in the past. In addition, because we believe the IGDA stands for more than
> just videogames, there are Memorials for designers of paper-based games, as
> well as for notable individuals from the toy industry, researchers and
> computer scientists whose work has greatly affected the ways in which we
> understand, play, and design our games.
>
> It is our conviction that the IGDA Memorials Project will help the IGDA
> build our international community and will create an awareness for our art
> form by giving it an expanded sense of history.  We recognize our community
> as being a continuum of individuals stretching from the past to the present
> day and as such we wish to celebrate the achievements of those who have made
> important contributions to the evolution of the Game Industry.  The IGDA
> Memorials Project will serve to remind us of the achievements and creative
> passions of the people who have helped shape the medium into what it is
> today and whose legacy continues to inspire where we will take it in the
> future.
>
> The IGDA Memorials Project welcomes participation from members of the
> community to help celebrate the memories of our own. Most Memorials provide
> the option for members to post eulogies regarding their own personal
> experiences with and memories of a person they knew or whose work they cared
> deeply about. We are also interested in hearing about other developers whose
> Memorials are not already on our site. If you are interested in
> participating in the IGDA Memorials Project, please visit our Submission
> Guidelines page ( http://www.igda.org/wiki/Memorials/Submission_Guidelines) or contact
> memorials at igda.org.
>
> Devin Monnens
> IGDA Game Preservation SIG
> IGDA Memorials Project
> University of Denver
>
>
> Sam Punnett
> FAD Research
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
>  http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
> Henry Lowood, Ph.D.
> Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;
>  Film & Media Collections
> HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
> Stanford University Libraries
> Stanford CA 94305-6004
> 650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood<http://www.stanford.edu/%7Elowood>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing listgame_preservation at igda.orghttp://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
>


-- 
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

"Until next time..."
Captain Commando
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From andrew at aarmstrong.org  Tue Jun 24 21:24:32 2008
From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 02:24:32 +0100
Subject: [game_preservation] Edited copy - IGDA Memorials Project Letter
In-Reply-To: <b96706b70806241715h766829aao8372f1b0930a5549@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6.2.3.4.2.20080624102746.04a5dc40@pop.primus.ca>	<6.2.5.6.2.20080624163638.053c3538@stanford.edu>	<48618C1D.5080508@aarmstrong.org>
	<b96706b70806241715h766829aao8372f1b0930a5549@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <48619E50.7040500@aarmstrong.org>

Captain Commando wrote:
> Speaking of which, SURELY the IGDA Games Preservation SIG has a 
> complete collection of all IGDA Newsletters ever mailed? :)
Um, probably...why? They're put up as news on the IGDA site, so they're 
likely all there.

I'll put up whatever description is best suited to the wiki, it needs 
some of the text included in any of these descriptions at least so it's 
easier if I just copy it over.

Andrew

From evilcowclone at gmail.com  Tue Jun 24 21:31:00 2008
From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando)
Date: Tue, 24 Jun 2008 19:31:00 -0600
Subject: [game_preservation] Limbo of the Lost
Message-ID: <b96706b70806241831g2674f504qac2d41cb2d0c7310@mail.gmail.com>

Hi all,

I figured I'd bring this one out to see if anyone has been following up on
it recently. It's a horrible game that has plagiarized practically
everything called 'Limbo of the Lost':

http://kotaku.com/5019034/limbo-of-the-lost-devs-protest-innocence

Apparently, they ripped entire levels and models out of Oblivion and stuck
them all into the game.

Now the reason why this is interesting is because you can see a cult
developing around this as we speak: there is already a wiki chronicling all
of the things this game ripped off:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limbo_of_the_Lost#Controversy

http://lotl.wikia.com/wiki/Limbo_of_the_Lost_Wiki

I think there's definitely something interesting culturally about this game,
how it's a commercial release which has cobbled together the plagiarized
bits of so many other games. I figured I would bring it up for discussion as
I think there's a connection here with preservation (if only because this
thing's going to get pulled from the market within a couple weeks :P).

-DM

-- 
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

"Until next time..."
Captain Commando
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From andrew at aarmstrong.org  Wed Jun 25 08:50:10 2008
From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:50:10 +0100
Subject: [game_preservation] Limbo of the Lost
In-Reply-To: <b96706b70806241831g2674f504qac2d41cb2d0c7310@mail.gmail.com>
References: <b96706b70806241831g2674f504qac2d41cb2d0c7310@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <48623F02.8080007@aarmstrong.org>

Captain Commando wrote:
> Apparently, they ripped entire levels and models out of Oblivion and 
> stuck them all into the game.
The game was made in a 2d point-and-click game maker program. The 
"models" were all just static screenshots. Only the (actually self-made) 
3d models for the characters, etc. were really 3d.

Notably, the people behind it have offered the excuse it was outsourced. 
Who knows if they are lying or not?

They're recalling the game. Funnily enough, some people who have played 
it said it isn't a downright terrible game from what I've read. 
Interesting culture angle perhaps, only because it is so blatant, so 
humorous how they'd either never played the game they've got screenshots 
of or they simply didn't care and thought no one would notice!

Andrew

From andrew at aarmstrong.org  Sat Jun 28 19:49:53 2008
From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 00:49:53 +0100
Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage
Message-ID: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org>

I've not seen this discussed, thought it might be interesting to know 
what people used for long-term storage of anything (not just preserving 
our games. Because of course we can't remove the media from the CD's 
legally or some rubbish ;-) ).

Okay, I myself am poor (both at backing up long term and in the money 
sense). I use external HDD's to backup, not that much space, I want to 
get TB drives (I have one old one I use, but the others are like 250GB, 
not enough!). For more-or-less static stuff, I use DVD's to back the 
stuff up.

I did wonder if the price/performance point of this kind of media was 
worthwhile *ever* considering the rate of change in technology:

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/06/27/delkin_200_year_bluray_disc/

?125 a pop. Worth it more then 2 DVD's every X number of years for some 
data?

It doesn't seem any more worth then HDD's (of any type, although solid 
state have inherent advantages).

In any case, for preservationists I do wonder what is used - I hope it 
isn't just tape backups, which are rapidly going out of fashion and space :)

I presume it's mainly based around automated data redundancy and 
checking (so yet more redundancy if something fails).

Well, for hobbists it's going to be a lot smaller scale. It's 
interesting seeing the extremes :) and if any company starts providing a 
proper long-term (and well tested) solution to hardware failure, at a 
more reasonable cost :)

Andrew

From evilcowclone at gmail.com  Sat Jun 28 20:06:34 2008
From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando)
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 18:06:34 -0600
Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage
In-Reply-To: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org>
References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org>
Message-ID: <b96706b70806281706q13fbb565scd3dbe077256b584@mail.gmail.com>

Even if they say this disc will last for 200 years, I don't think the
company is going to be around 200 years when we find out whether or not they
were right :P

Right now, I think the cheapest option is to go with redundant hard drives
due to their storage, cost, and access speed. Use optical media for the
really important stuff that you can't replace. 1TB hard drives are less than
$200 now - for the cost of one of those delkin blu-rays, you can store 40
times the amount. For the cost of 2, you can make it redundant and keep that
drive in storage. If you pay a bit more per GB, you can purchase multiple
smaller, more stable drives, too.

I'm not convinced this long-term storage is the way to go simply because
there's now way of knowing. And remember: data migration is a necessary
thing. Do you really think we'll still be using blu-ray drives 200 years
from now?

On Sat, Jun 28, 2008 at 5:49 PM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>
wrote:

> I've not seen this discussed, thought it might be interesting to know what
> people used for long-term storage of anything (not just preserving our
> games. Because of course we can't remove the media from the CD's legally or
> some rubbish ;-) ).
>
> Okay, I myself am poor (both at backing up long term and in the money
> sense). I use external HDD's to backup, not that much space, I want to get
> TB drives (I have one old one I use, but the others are like 250GB, not
> enough!). For more-or-less static stuff, I use DVD's to back the stuff up.
>
> I did wonder if the price/performance point of this kind of media was
> worthwhile *ever* considering the rate of change in technology:
>
> http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/06/27/delkin_200_year_bluray_disc/
>
> ?125 a pop. Worth it more then 2 DVD's every X number of years for some
> data?
>
> It doesn't seem any more worth then HDD's (of any type, although solid
> state have inherent advantages).
>
> In any case, for preservationists I do wonder what is used - I hope it
> isn't just tape backups, which are rapidly going out of fashion and space :)
>
> I presume it's mainly based around automated data redundancy and checking
> (so yet more redundancy if something fails).
>
> Well, for hobbists it's going to be a lot smaller scale. It's interesting
> seeing the extremes :) and if any company starts providing a proper
> long-term (and well tested) solution to hardware failure, at a more
> reasonable cost :)
>
> Andrew
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>



-- 
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

"Until next time..."
Captain Commando
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From andrew at aarmstrong.org  Sun Jun 29 21:03:22 2008
From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 02:03:22 +0100
Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage
In-Reply-To: <b96706b70806281706q13fbb565scd3dbe077256b584@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org>
	<b96706b70806281706q13fbb565scd3dbe077256b584@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <486830DA.6010702@aarmstrong.org>

Yeah, the manufacturer and the medium are not really going to have a 
chance of being the same in 200 years.

It'd be nice to investigate a proper archive. I wish I knew of some in 
the UK, there must be data archives (the British Library perhaps) even 
if they have nothing for computer software archives.

Andrew

Captain Commando wrote:
> Even if they say this disc will last for 200 years, I don't think the 
> company is going to be around 200 years when we find out whether or 
> not they were right :P

From evilcowclone at gmail.com  Sun Jun 29 21:42:37 2008
From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 19:42:37 -0600
Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage
In-Reply-To: <486830DA.6010702@aarmstrong.org>
References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org>
	<b96706b70806281706q13fbb565scd3dbe077256b584@mail.gmail.com>
	<486830DA.6010702@aarmstrong.org>
Message-ID: <b96706b70806291842g416b0350kaa49cbfee32c7af7@mail.gmail.com>

I second that. We should do a survey and get reports from actual data
archives - how do they do it, how much is the budget, etc. Also how much of
the rules they follow regarding redundancy and data migration! For instance,
how does the Internet Archive do it? I assume they have had to have gone
through at least one data migration from their older drives...

I am convinced the most efficient way is storing data in mass on redundantly
backed up drives (two copies of the same drive, stored in different
locations, one is never used until migration is required or source drive
malfunctions) and particularly important data is backed up to optical disc
(currently most cost effective method is DVD-R, at least until Blu-ray
becomes $1 a disc or comparable GB/$ ratio). Storing data on Hard Drives
means they can be accessed fairly easily and data can be migrated in large
quantities and accessed fairly rapdily - unlike magnetic tape. I'm not sure
if tape is easier to recover from than a broken hard drive though, but HDD
recovery is very expensive. Obviously when Blu-Ray discs become
cost-effective, you can back up entire drives with Blu-Ray (just set some
grad students or interns to work on it in the lab, as it takes awhile :P).
Drives will also likely have to be formatted in NTSF as Linux and now OSX
can read (and write to!) the drives as well as its native Windows.

If anybody has a better idea for how to do it, let me know, but this is the
best I can think of in terms of compatibility.

In terms of drive size, 750 and 1TB drives do exist, but the larger the
drive, the less stable. If anybody can find a lot of SeaGate 160GB for dirt
cheap, that might be the best method.

Here's a list of current prices on Newegg. the most cost-effective is
Seagate 750GB, though Western Digital makes cheaper 160GB drives (the
recommended size for largest size vs stability). You can probably get them
in bulk for cheaper from the manufacturer. It appears that SATA is the
format to go with because A. you can set up a RAID system and B. many
computers today have SATA compatibility and some don't have ATA drive
support at all. if you're using external drive enclosures, be sure to get
ones that have Firewire connection as that's currently the fastest.

I'd also have to see some studies on drive longevity if it's kept in a
stable environment and never used and then activated after a long time (and
also a drive that's constantly running, or only being run for short periods
and being shut on and off fairly regularly).

Seagate

160 GB - 3.33GB/$
250GB - 4.31/$
320GB - 4.57/$
500GB - 6.66/$
750GB - 7.50/$
1TB - 4.54/$


Western Digital

80 - 2.05
160 - 3.63/$
250 - 4.31
320 - 4.92
500 - 6.66
750 - 6.25
1TB - 5.26

On Sun, Jun 29, 2008 at 7:03 PM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>
wrote:

> Yeah, the manufacturer and the medium are not really going to have a chance
> of being the same in 200 years.
>
> It'd be nice to investigate a proper archive. I wish I knew of some in the
> UK, there must be data archives (the British Library perhaps) even if they
> have nothing for computer software archives.
>
> Andrew
>
> Captain Commando wrote:
>
>> Even if they say this disc will last for 200 years, I don't think the
>> company is going to be around 200 years when we find out whether or not they
>> were right :P
>>
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>



-- 
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

"Until next time..."
Captain Commando
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From andrew at aarmstrong.org  Mon Jun 30 10:05:42 2008
From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:05:42 +0100
Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage
In-Reply-To: <b96706b70806291842g416b0350kaa49cbfee32c7af7@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org>	<b96706b70806281706q13fbb565scd3dbe077256b584@mail.gmail.com>	<486830DA.6010702@aarmstrong.org>
	<b96706b70806291842g416b0350kaa49cbfee32c7af7@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4868E836.2000201@aarmstrong.org>

Neat thoughts. I suspect however you're wrong in saying NTFS would be 
the way an archive would go - as it'd be primarily server-based hard 
drive arrays, no doubt they'd choose whatever was best for the OS 
running the servers. Interfacing with that would be via. shares, so no 
need for native writing in any case. (also; OSX cannot write to NTFS at 
all).

Some file systems with proper symbolic links might be necessary for 
advanced archiving or checking software, I'm not sure.

RAID would be the most important thing I bet, certainly a hot swappable 
and automatically rebuildable array. As long as the hardware is there to 
deal with telling people something is wrong, then it should be a good 
system as long as it's redundant with a second server, in a entirely 
different location you'd hope :-D

Andrew

From trixter at oldskool.org  Mon Jun 30 13:19:46 2008
From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:19:46 -0500
Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage
In-Reply-To: <4868E836.2000201@aarmstrong.org>
References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org>	<b96706b70806281706q13fbb565scd3dbe077256b584@mail.gmail.com>	<486830DA.6010702@aarmstrong.org>	<b96706b70806291842g416b0350kaa49cbfee32c7af7@mail.gmail.com>
	<4868E836.2000201@aarmstrong.org>
Message-ID: <486915B2.4090506@oldskool.org>

I work with these technologies as part of my Day Job(tm) so I can offer 
some insight, but it is that same Day Job(tm) that has preventing me 
from commenting thus far.  I'll try to do so tonight.

Andrew Armstrong wrote:
> Neat thoughts. I suspect however you're wrong in saying NTFS would be 
> the way an archive would go - as it'd be primarily server-based hard 
> drive arrays, no doubt they'd choose whatever was best for the OS 
> running the servers. Interfacing with that would be via. shares, so no 
> need for native writing in any case. (also; OSX cannot write to NTFS at 
> all).
> 
> Some file systems with proper symbolic links might be necessary for 
> advanced archiving or checking software, I'm not sure.
> 
> RAID would be the most important thing I bet, certainly a hot swappable 
> and automatically rebuildable array. As long as the hardware is there to 
> deal with telling people something is wrong, then it should be a good 
> system as long as it's redundant with a second server, in a entirely 
> different location you'd hope :-D
> 
> Andrew
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
> 

-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)            http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project:           http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at     http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/

From andrew at aarmstrong.org  Mon Jun 30 14:15:57 2008
From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:15:57 +0100
Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage
In-Reply-To: <486915B2.4090506@oldskool.org>
References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org>	<b96706b70806281706q13fbb565scd3dbe077256b584@mail.gmail.com>	<486830DA.6010702@aarmstrong.org>	<b96706b70806291842g416b0350kaa49cbfee32c7af7@mail.gmail.com>	<4868E836.2000201@aarmstrong.org>
	<486915B2.4090506@oldskool.org>
Message-ID: <486922DD.1020504@aarmstrong.org>

Jim Leonard wrote:
> I work with these technologies as part of my Day Job(tm) so I can 
> offer some insight, but it is that same Day Job(tm) that has 
> preventing me from commenting thus far.  I'll try to do so tonight.
Cool, thanks Jim! :-D

I've been thinking and I'll probably look into contacting some UK 
archives, if anything relevant even exists, over summer. I'm sure USA 
versions are much bigger in any case, but it'd be interesting to visit 
one (and if information could be gleamed it's always worth putting it in 
the SIG's wiki of course). I'm sure they're all different, but there is 
bound to be a lot of common ground, and it might also help future 
whitepaper work if any guidelines were set down on how to archive.

Andrew

From simon at archive.org  Mon Jun 30 14:23:19 2008
From: simon at archive.org (Simon Carless)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:23:19 -0700
Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage
In-Reply-To: <486922DD.1020504@aarmstrong.org>
References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org>
	<b96706b70806281706q13fbb565scd3dbe077256b584@mail.gmail.com>
	<486830DA.6010702@aarmstrong.org>
	<b96706b70806291842g416b0350kaa49cbfee32c7af7@mail.gmail.com>
	<4868E836.2000201@aarmstrong.org> <486915B2.4090506@oldskool.org>
	<486922DD.1020504@aarmstrong.org>
Message-ID: <2b19faf60806301123n60ae72b6odc1da27562c173f7@mail.gmail.com>

I think a far more important question is - what are we preserving and how
are we preserving it? I already started using the Internet Archive's data
systems (which are fairly robust, and which I'm sure we could use for legal
projects) for the CLASP project, which is now on hiatus.

But the issue was - it's just no fun and a tremendous amount of work 'dark
archiving' classic games into sealed vaults for 75 years (until copyright
runs out - potentially longer!), especially when there's no real ability to
display them anywhere.

As Henry Lowood has remarked before a few times on here - it's probably the
participatory history (interviewing creators) and physical ephemera around
the making of the game that is as - or more - important than the finished
product itself, which I have a strong reason to believe will be preserved by
hobbyists and fans - in digital/emulated form, quite often - far beyond any
organized or centralized attempt to do so.

My 2c,
Simon.

On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 11:15 AM, Andrew Armstrong <andrew at aarmstrong.org>
wrote:

> Jim Leonard wrote:
>
>> I work with these technologies as part of my Day Job(tm) so I can offer
>> some insight, but it is that same Day Job(tm) that has preventing me from
>> commenting thus far.  I'll try to do so tonight.
>>
> Cool, thanks Jim! :-D
>
> I've been thinking and I'll probably look into contacting some UK archives,
> if anything relevant even exists, over summer. I'm sure USA versions are
> much bigger in any case, but it'd be interesting to visit one (and if
> information could be gleamed it's always worth putting it in the SIG's wiki
> of course). I'm sure they're all different, but there is bound to be a lot
> of common ground, and it might also help future whitepaper work if any
> guidelines were set down on how to archive.
>
>
> Andrew
> _______________________________________________
> game_preservation mailing list
> game_preservation at igda.org
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
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From andrew at aarmstrong.org  Mon Jun 30 14:58:41 2008
From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:58:41 +0100
Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage
In-Reply-To: <2b19faf60806301123n60ae72b6odc1da27562c173f7@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org>	<b96706b70806281706q13fbb565scd3dbe077256b584@mail.gmail.com>	<486830DA.6010702@aarmstrong.org>	<b96706b70806291842g416b0350kaa49cbfee32c7af7@mail.gmail.com>	<4868E836.2000201@aarmstrong.org>
	<486915B2.4090506@oldskool.org>	<486922DD.1020504@aarmstrong.org>
	<2b19faf60806301123n60ae72b6odc1da27562c173f7@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <48692CE1.8090702@aarmstrong.org>

Simon Carless wrote:
> I think a far more important question is - what are we preserving and 
> how are we preserving it?
This is an important question :) I think the whitepaper this SIG is 
going to be doing *pokes Henry* should help cover it.

I didn't bring this up, I just wondered about the technical side of 
preserving digital data (nevermind hard copies of written stuff or 
anything!). Stop making my topic go off topic, haha! :P

I think it'd be great to bring this up another time (or discuss it now I 
guess if people want to ;) ). A discussion on how to allow companies to 
give away more rights to archives or whoever, so it's more useful to 
have the actual games, would be good too. Dark archives are necessary, 
but honestly a bit useless, especially for games, like you said since no 
one can use them!

Andrew

From lowood at stanford.edu  Mon Jun 30 15:02:35 2008
From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:02:35 -0700
Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage
In-Reply-To: <2b19faf60806301123n60ae72b6odc1da27562c173f7@mail.gmail.co
 m>
References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org>
	<b96706b70806281706q13fbb565scd3dbe077256b584@mail.gmail.com>
	<486830DA.6010702@aarmstrong.org>
	<b96706b70806291842g416b0350kaa49cbfee32c7af7@mail.gmail.com>
	<4868E836.2000201@aarmstrong.org> <486915B2.4090506@oldskool.org>
	<486922DD.1020504@aarmstrong.org>
	<2b19faf60806301123n60ae72b6odc1da27562c173f7@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20080630113441.05e499c8@stanford.edu>

<... ears itching, wakes up ..., "somebody must be talking about me.">

I'll just add that with current models for software preservation, the 
"wrapper information" requires a lot of contextual research about the 
making and distribution of a software title. The bits by themselves 
will be very difficult to do anything with otherwise.  In the project 
with Library of Congress, it's interesting how much research about 
the systems used for distributing and running a piece of software we 
have to do for each software title under consideration. That's a 
layer in-between the contextual materials and the software itself, 
but of course it touches both kinds of documentation.

Another consideration is that software preservation is fairly 
resource-intensive (in terms of long-term preservation models, I'm 
not talking about emulation alone) while a lot can be done with 
limited resources to create and preserve related documentation -- 
documents, interviews, pages like the Memorial sites, etc.   I'm 
thinking a lot lately about what I have begun calling the battleships 
and pt-boats model.  The battleships are the big institutional 
repositories -- they take a long while to get moving but once moving 
can deploy significant resources; pt-boats are individual 
researchers, hobbyists, curators with collecting passions -- nimble, 
quick, and able to reach places that are inaccessible to 
battleships.  Battleships can easily miss targets because they can't 
turn in time (there is a historical case I can cite by the way: the 
Yamato at the Battle of the Leyte Gulf). So far, game preservation 
has been dominated by pt-boats and it is likely to stay that way for 
some time; however, a few battleships are beginning to load some 
ammunition and stores.  Ideal case: the admirals at the major 
repositories start talking to the pt-boat captains in player 
communities and groups like this one. Anyway, that's one of our goals 
for the Library of Congress project.

Henry





At 11:23 AM 6/30/2008, Simon Carless wrote:
>I think a far more important question is - what are we preserving 
>and how are we preserving it? I already started using the Internet 
>Archive's data systems (which are fairly robust, and which I'm sure 
>we could use for legal projects) for the CLASP project, which is now on hiatus.
>
>But the issue was - it's just no fun and a tremendous amount of work 
>'dark archiving' classic games into sealed vaults for 75 years 
>(until copyright runs out - potentially longer!), especially when 
>there's no real ability to display them anywhere.
>
>As Henry Lowood has remarked before a few times on here - it's 
>probably the participatory history (interviewing creators) and 
>physical ephemera around the making of the game that is as - or more 
>- important than the finished product itself, which I have a strong 
>reason to believe will be preserved by hobbyists and fans - in 
>digital/emulated form, quite often - far beyond any organized or 
>centralized attempt to do so.
>
>My 2c,
>Simon.
>
>On Mon, Jun 30, 2008 at 11:15 AM, Andrew Armstrong 
><<mailto:andrew at aarmstrong.org>andrew at aarmstrong.org> wrote:
>Jim Leonard wrote:
>I work with these technologies as part of my Day Job(tm) so I can 
>offer some insight, but it is that same Day Job(tm) that has 
>preventing me from commenting thus far.  I'll try to do so tonight.
>
>Cool, thanks Jim! :-D
>
>I've been thinking and I'll probably look into contacting some UK 
>archives, if anything relevant even exists, over summer. I'm sure 
>USA versions are much bigger in any case, but it'd be interesting to 
>visit one (and if information could be gleamed it's always worth 
>putting it in the SIG's wiki of course). I'm sure they're all 
>different, but there is bound to be a lot of common ground, and it 
>might also help future whitepaper work if any guidelines were set 
>down on how to archive.
>
>
>Andrew
>_______________________________________________
>game_preservation mailing list
><mailto:game_preservation at igda.org>game_preservation at igda.org
>http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation
>
>
>_______________________________________________
>game_preservation mailing list
>game_preservation at igda.org
>http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation

Henry Lowood, Ph.D.
Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;
  Film & Media Collections
HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
Stanford University Libraries
Stanford CA 94305-6004
650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood 
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From trixter at oldskool.org  Mon Jun 30 16:16:51 2008
From: trixter at oldskool.org (Jim Leonard)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 15:16:51 -0500
Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage
In-Reply-To: <2b19faf60806301123n60ae72b6odc1da27562c173f7@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org>	<b96706b70806281706q13fbb565scd3dbe077256b584@mail.gmail.com>	<486830DA.6010702@aarmstrong.org>	<b96706b70806291842g416b0350kaa49cbfee32c7af7@mail.gmail.com>	<4868E836.2000201@aarmstrong.org>
	<486915B2.4090506@oldskool.org>	<486922DD.1020504@aarmstrong.org>
	<2b19faf60806301123n60ae72b6odc1da27562c173f7@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <48693F33.1020506@oldskool.org>

Simon Carless wrote:
> As Henry Lowood has remarked before a few times on here - it's probably 
> the participatory history (interviewing creators) and physical ephemera 
> around the making of the game that is as - or more - important than the 
> finished product itself, which I have a strong reason to believe will be 
> preserved by hobbyists and fans - in digital/emulated form, quite often 
> - far beyond any organized or centralized attempt to do so.

I disagree about "more" important, since without the art we wouldn't 
care about the artist.  But oral record (or otherwise) is indeed just as 
important.
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)            http://www.oldskool.org/
Help our electronic games project:           http://www.mobygames.com/
Or check out some trippy MindCandy at     http://www.mindcandydvd.com/
A child borne of the home computer wars: http://trixter.wordpress.com/

From lowood at stanford.edu  Mon Jun 30 16:30:01 2008
From: lowood at stanford.edu (Henry Lowood)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:30:01 -0700
Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage
In-Reply-To: <48692CE1.8090702@aarmstrong.org>
References: <4866CE21.9030400@aarmstrong.org>
	<b96706b70806281706q13fbb565scd3dbe077256b584@mail.gmail.com>
	<486830DA.6010702@aarmstrong.org>
	<b96706b70806291842g416b0350kaa49cbfee32c7af7@mail.gmail.com>
	<4868E836.2000201@aarmstrong.org> <486915B2.4090506@oldskool.org>
	<486922DD.1020504@aarmstrong.org>
	<2b19faf60806301123n60ae72b6odc1da27562c173f7@mail.gmail.com>
	<48692CE1.8090702@aarmstrong.org>
Message-ID: <6.2.5.6.2.20080630132842.05feb8f0@stanford.edu>

Oh man, can't a guy get any sleep around here ...

I'll try to get something to the group this week -- we have an 
opportunity to apply for a small grant through IGDA.  Stay tuned.

Henry

At 11:58 AM 6/30/2008, Andrew Armstrong wrote:
>Simon Carless wrote:
>>I think a far more important question is - what are we preserving 
>>and how are we preserving it?
>This is an important question :) I think the whitepaper this SIG is 
>going to be doing *pokes Henry* should help cover it.
>
>I didn't bring this up, I just wondered about the technical side of 
>preserving digital data (nevermind hard copies of written stuff or 
>anything!). Stop making my topic go off topic, haha! :P
>
>I think it'd be great to bring this up another time (or discuss it 
>now I guess if people want to ;) ). A discussion on how to allow 
>companies to give away more rights to archives or whoever, so it's 
>more useful to have the actual games, would be good too. Dark 
>archives are necessary, but honestly a bit useless, especially for 
>games, like you said since no one can use them!
>
>Andrew
>_______________________________________________
>game_preservation mailing list
>game_preservation at igda.org
>http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/game_preservation

Henry Lowood, Ph.D.
Curator for History of Science & Technology Collections;
  Film & Media Collections
HRG, Green Library, 557 Escondido Mall
Stanford University Libraries
Stanford CA 94305-6004
650-723-4602; lowood at stanford.edu; http://www.stanford.edu/~lowood 
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From andrew at aarmstrong.org  Mon Jun 30 19:18:02 2008
From: andrew at aarmstrong.org (Andrew Armstrong)
Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2008 00:18:02 +0100
Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage
In-Reply-To: <6.2.5.6.2.20080630132842.05feb8f0@stanford.edu>
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Henry Lowood wrote:
> Oh man, can't a guy get any sleep around here ...
>
> I'll try to get something to the group this week -- we have an 
> opportunity to apply for a small grant through IGDA.  Stay tuned.
>
> Henry
Yay, poking prevails! ;-) Sorry Henry :-)

And good analogy with the battleships, I like that analogy. Certainly 
need more battleships, even though they are damn costly and take a long 
time to build, turn, load or whatever.

Andrew
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From evilcowclone at gmail.com  Mon Jun 30 19:44:14 2008
From: evilcowclone at gmail.com (Captain Commando)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:44:14 -0600
Subject: [game_preservation] Long-Term Storage
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Message-ID: <b96706b70806301644t7f87e828nfeef981a0cfa0c03@mail.gmail.com>

Big battleships also provoke the 'Death Star Syndrome', though this isn't
applicable to this analogy :) Well, except for the logic that it costs a LOT
less to build several smaller ships that combined together can do the same
as, if not more, damage than one big battleship (also check the hard drive
prices above - the largest drive is more expensive). So for the cost of your
Yamato, you can have ten cruisers that can be just as if not more effective
(the only downside is you can't promote your politico-military power around
ten small ships!). In addition, battleships use smaller vessels like
cruisers and destroyers as a protection screen (same with carriers, btw).
These smaller ships provide support for what would otherwise be holes in the
defense system - one big battleship cannot do it all :) (and let's not
forget how important having a good crew is!)

Regarding OSX... Actually, I'm running NTSF drives on my computer and I'm
reading and writing to them. I installed a piece of software that recognizes
them as network drives (either that, or the latest updates now support it).

In terms of compatibility though, NTSF is quite high, though it's
proprietary. As a result, it might be best to go with a more sustainable
open-source model (it would be cheaper for one thing!), but there's no
telling how the situation is going to be ten years from now, though I bet
there will still be Linux support.

This also brings up a question regarding the black vault archives... Are you
aloud to test the software to make sure it's actually working? I mean, it
sure would suck if, 80 years down the road, they pen up the vaults and none
of the games actually work!

-- 
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

"Until next time..."
Captain Commando
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