For several months I've been doing background research for a thing about Loki Software Entertainment, one of the first dedicated Linux games porting houses, which ran from 1998 to 2002.
Anyway, directly related to that, I just picked up a boxed copy of of their release, in collaboration with SUSE, of Civilization: Call To Power.
I was expecting a DVD case, like their their English language release of Heavy Metal: FAKK 2 , but no, this is a pristine big box release, with even the tech tree poster still intact. I have a copy of the UK Windows release from the time, so it'll be interesting to compare contents.
For a different Special Interest, I also picked up a few unpreserved French edutainment titles, including the beautifully presented La Boite À Musique (Christian edutainment?), and a couple of what turn out to be German Sierra releases (the Official Guide to Babylon 5 CD-ROM and Leisure Suit Larry's Casino) - the former doesn't appear to be properly catalogued in this edition, the latter very much is - I was hoping for French releases there. Not least because I can't speak German. But never mind.
I'm clearing out some stuff sight-unseen from a bargain basement place that has some really old software for about 2,50€ each, so it's a bit of a lucky dip what I get. Currently I'm finding new stuff (i.e. things that I can't turn up elsewhere on the internet) so it's pretty exciting.
It almost feels like the kind of thing it'd be worth starting a Ko-Fi to help fund, but it seems churlish to ask random people to upkeep my project for obscure software no one cares about to not be lost.
I love the clarity of this list of the 7 sustainability factors used by the US Library of Congress as global/community criteria for determining recommended file formats for preservation and long-term access:
Who has unpreserved edutainment software from 2001 ready to uploade?
DINO l'Aventurier en Europe, produced by the HobbySoft's Kid's Club marque appears to have been made by a Polish team, based on the directory names.
If there's a manual, I'm sadly missing it, but I do have the complete and unused colouring book set that occupies most of the steelbook case (early example of that case type, too).
New blog post: Hayes Please: Preserving Software History
Follow along with my journey when I acquired a 1984 software title that was nearly forgotten and learn of the troubles I encountered along with the tricks I used to resolve them.
The Video Game History Foundation and the Software Preservation Network conducted the first ever study on the commercial availability of classic video games, and the results are bleak.
More than half (87%) of classic video games released in the United States are critically endangered -- unfindable and unplayable.
"Just 13% of video game history is being represented in the current marketplace. In fact, no period of video game history defined in this study even cracked 20% representation."
This is pretty messed up. The study just backs up what advocates of physical media have been saying for years.
I wrote a piece for Rock Paper Shotgun last year and promptly got distracted. I had a lot of fun researching it and hope you'll find it an entertaining read.
I spoke to devs about why their games were delisted from Steam, delved into some rights disputes, and tell you how you can still add delisted free titles onto your Steam account.
Copyright, cost, and ageing code: why some games disappear from Steam