[game_preservation] game conservation at MoMA

[Andrew Armstrong]

Hi,

Late reply but The National Museum of Computing in the UK is working 
slowly on media preservation. We have other software as well as 
videogames, but we realise tapes/discs are frankly not going to last :)

Problem is the transcoding of media to something suitable, and we're 
also not yet setup with a good disk array and backups of it to be a 
"real archive" (this might be fixed soon though); however we do have 
digital copies of tapes (yes that old!) which of course include games - 
since they are so small we have copies everywhere of them. Real old 
school data capture there - serial 0/1 output from tape readers usually! 
It is what the machines themselves use to decode tape so it can be input 
back in off a laptop easily :)

Definitive lists of places is hard. Apart from the replies here you can 
see some of my work from a few years back on the wiki, some is now out 
of date (and I need to update it with some I know of) but actually 
contacting different places is surprisingly hard in some cases. I will 
have to get my ass in gear and work on yearly reports as I did for a few 
years; again though contact is hard :)

Andrew

On 15/01/2013 17:08, Kristin MacDonough wrote:

>

> Hello all,

>

> As many members of this listserv are aware, MoMA recently acquired a 

> selection of video games for exhibition and preservation. For my 

> master's thesis, I am researching the conservation side of this 

> acquisition, using /Portal/ as a case study. This appears to be one of 

> the perfect groups to reach out to for information.

>

> I'm working my way through a variety of documents and resources 

> available online, such as the PVW Final Report, the How They Got Game 

> project, case studies from UTexas, the case study on Second Life, and 

> so on. Anything I can get my hands on regarding the technical aspects 

> of conserving video games.

>

> Would anyone be willing and able to share additional case studies or 

> research in this area? I'm interested in how others have conserved 

> different digital games, what worked, what didn't, and additional 

> technical specs anyone is willing to share.

>

> I am also trying to get a definitive list of the museums which are 

> collecting AND conserving video games. I'm aware many museums are 

> collecting and exhibiting games, but not necessarily conserving them.

>

> Please feel free to respond on or off list with recommendations, 

> resources, and insights.

>

> Thank you for your time and I look forward to your replies!

>

>

> -- 

> Kristin MacDonough

> Moving Image Archiving and Preservation

> New York University

>

>

>

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