[game_preservation] Abandonware

[Captain Commando]

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.

>>>>>

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>>>>

>>>

>>>

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>>>

>>>

>>

>>

>> --

>> The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

>>

>> "Until next time..."

>> Captain Commando

>>

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>>

>>

>

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>



-- 
The sleep of Reason produces monsters.

"Until next time..."
Captain Commando
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