[game_preservation] Article about proper SNES emulation

[Christian Bartsch | softpres.org]

I think the most common misconception is that the hardware is the most 
expensive part, but it's not. What really drains hours and money is the 
research and actually analysing data ingested which takes whatever time 
we feel free to donate.

I've actually been talking about this to some institues, archives, 
libraries and so forth and they all agree... it would be nice to have 
some kind of European data center they all could send their dumps too 
and get analysed images or reports back. But to start such a venture, 
you not only need the tech. You also need the funding to run things for 
1-2 years, which easily adds up to some hundreds of thousands of Euros.

The money we spent so far was a) manpower (realistically more than a 
million Euros) and b) buying games from various sources.

If someone was asking me, I'd pack my bags and move wherever necessary 
to coordinate the effort, but even high profile libraries (like the 
German national one), just put the box on the shelf and say "Look, there 
it is". As long as politics don't call for _proper_ preservation of 
_games_ (not considered art in Germany, at least not on the archive 
level), they don't feel like spending some money for it. The moment they 
do, it might be too late.

Christian Bartsch
The Software Preservation Society
http://www.softpres.org


Am 15.08.2011 17:26, schrieb István Fábián:

> Yes, we are mostly in Europe... so 7 digits is in Euros.

> Realistically, you'd find that emulation itself requires similar 

> investments - even if you may enjoy the results for free.We are 

> certainly willing to loan devices, or dump a collection on loan to us, 

> it really depends on the specific circumstances.

>

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://six.pairlist.net/pipermail/game_preservation/attachments/20110815/2acfa985/attachment.html>