Video Welcome to the University of Michigan's Computer and Video Game Archive (Video) 55
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After watching this video, a lot of you are going to wish you were
Dave Carter, who works at the University of Michigan's Computer and Video Game Archive. He deals with video games, from the oldest hand-helds and consoles to the newest Xbox and PC games and controllers. A lot of his time is no doubt spent fixing things that break, finding obscure games, being generally helpful, and making sure nobody breaks the games, consoles, computers, controllers, and even board games and memorabilia in the collection. But still, this has got to be the ultimate job for a game junkie. And it looks like a great place to visit, because this museum is part of a library, and just as a library encourages you to pick up books and read them, this is a place where you can actually play the games, not just stare at a ColecoVision console in a display case. You can play in a cubicle or, for games that take some space, there are a couple of big gaming rooms with soft-looking sofas and big flat-screen TVs, where you can jump up and down like crazy while you're doing Guitar Hero or using a Wii or Kinect. And if you can't make it to Ann Arbor, MI, there's an informative blog that's all about video games past and present that's must reading for almost any serious gamer.
Re:Your tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is exactly why we need to do away with publicly funded education. This type of shit would never fly in the private sector. Remember this story the next time you get your tax bill.
You fool. Universities offer video game production programs of study, they have for years.
Back to the Stygian Abyss with you!
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True, I didn't need college to study gender.
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Let me guess: you're one of those that's all in favor of turning our institutions of higher learning into trade schools?
--Jeremy
Re:Your tax dollars at work. (Score:5, Insightful)
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stop making sensible statements
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wasting millions a year on sports programs
We're talking about colleges here, not trade schools; museums, music programs, sports programs, social clubs, liberal arts courses, etc. are all part of the college experience. And besides, Michigan's sports programs make many millions of dollars profit for the school.
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More is spent on sports then is received back to students as services so your millions in profit argument is null.
Without knowing what you mean by "received back" I can't respond. However, I went to a large university with a well known sports program (NOT Penn State, which was a very bad exception) and never felt that students were not served by the sports program or that it was "at the head of the table".
As far as "HORRENDOUSLY disproportionate", it's nowhere near what you seem to think. Michigan has a total budget of something over $5 Billion, their athletic program has a budget of around $120 Million (about 2.5%, p
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In general, I think you are right about sports in higher education, but ...
More is spent on sports then is received back to students as services
I'm not sure what you mean, but Michigan's athletic department pays for itself and makes a profit. Nothing is taken away from the rest of the university.
One challenge schools have is that sports programs are great publicity. Win and applications increase. As a simple example, who heard of Gonzaga before they started winning basketball games?
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Michigan's sports programs make many millions of dollars profit for the school.
Michigan is a rare exception, if that's true. Most collegiate athletics come no where near to making a profit. Getting rid of all of them and putting their money back into the education budget would be a net win for education.
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Any word on how this library is funded? I didn't see anything saying that the University is paying for it. And if so, I don't see anything about what percentage of the funding comes from public tax-paid funds. That's but one revenue source for public universities.
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Oh. And also.. I just fed a troll. I feel dirty.
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http://vpcomm.umich.edu/budget/fundingsnapshot/index.html
UM's endowment is 16.9% state supported. It's more private than public.
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This is exactly why we need to do away with publicly funded education. This type of shit would never fly in the private sector. Remember this story the next time you get your tax bill.
Umich researcher here (full-time staff, part time comp sci student)... yes, I wish my tuition was a bit lower, especially since I'm a self-funded student. But we have one of the top CS programs in the country (and arguably the best outside of Silicon Valley). The only way you can build and maintain a program like that is to have resources like this available to the students to experiment with and learn from. It's an investment, not an expense.
By the way, don't worry too much about your tax bill. Our state l
The voice that still haunts me (Score:3)
Another visitor .. stay a while, stay forever!
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someone +1 him for obscure C64 reference!
I felt a healthy dose of nostalgia when I read that.
Typical Wolverines.. (Score:2)
Always trying to hop on the band wagon after the fact. The Blue and Maize may have bought up a couple arcades worth of memorabilia, but Michigan State had our comic book collection first! (http://comics.lib.msu.edu/).
Go Green and White! We'll see the rodents on the Football field.
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There's also this: http://guides.lib.umich.edu/comics [umich.edu]
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Ok, I see how it is. It would be easy to let this sort of slip into the type of undignified nerd slap fight we sometimes see here at slashdot.
So be it. www.nscl.msu.edu. Superconducting cyclotron. Howdya like them muons!
Great idea (Score:1)
I really like this idea. As I get older, I often feel nostalgia for the games I played as a kid, but I just can't justify the amount of time, money, and most of all physical space involved in keeping old games/systems around. Going into a library to scratch these occasional itches would be a perfect solution for me.
Plus, it's important to start thinking about preservation projects now. We always assume that because things are digital, they can hold up forever, but that's just not true. A lot of the companie
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These projects seem like an utter waste. The only way to actually preserve this stuff is to wipe out the DRM and preserve the code in an accessible format. Cartridges die. Discs die. Floppies die. The readers for these things die. The players for them die. The controllers for them die. Over time, preservation and usability of the code itself (ie, ability to use on emulators of all kinds) is the only viable goal of archival.
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Well, they die in part because nobody really takes care of them. You could say the same thing about old books or works of art, yet the preservation of those is a precise science these days. If all that mattered was the contents, we could digitize or replicate all of it. But we don't. We don't just throw old tomes through Google's book scanner and then toss them into the recycle bin. The spine of a 1,500-year-old book may not hold any particular value to people who make books today, but we keep them around b
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The goal should be the preservation of the code AND the artwork that goes along with it. Boxes, carts labels, discs overlays, posters, manuals, etc.
Otherwise, you're going to miss historic details like the extremely crappy artwork of the North-American release of Mega Man [wikipedia.org].
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The readers and players are part of the experience, just like they joysticks, keyboard and all the rest of the hardware. Just backing up the code and throwing it in an emulator works reasonably well, but you lose a lot in the process and unless you have actual hardware to compare to, you can't even be sure your emulator is even working correctly.
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This is where emulators such as MAME come in handy. It may be hard to re-create some specialized interfaces such as the Intellivision controller, but believe me, that's no loss in most cases.
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As I get older, I often feel nostalgia for the games I played as a kid, but I just can't justify the amount of time, money, and most of all physical space involved in keeping old games/systems around
If you try, you inevitably end up spending more time troubleshooting, repairing, and configuring these machines than actually playing them. Old controllers need cleaning, old electrolytic capacitors need replacing, old video ports need to be modded to work on modern displays. It's a lot like having a classic c
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Nah, they could just keep a bunch of old Trinitrons in the back for displays. Those things are tanks.
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On a related note, I was involved in an exhibition that featur
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Right, archiving is a total waste.
What made you think I was advocating anything like that? I was speaking from personal experience. I have a couple dozen classic consoles and classic computers hooked up in my basement, and I spend more time curating than playing. Nothing about that means that museums aren't worthwhile. All it means is that if you're a gamer, you should think hard about getting into collecting because it might not be what you actually want to do.
For those who like playing with old techno
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Makerbots Galore (Score:2)
When I toured the campus a few months back, I was more interested in the 3d lab they have setup across the hall. http://um3d.dc.umich.edu/ [umich.edu]
There are other places like this... (Score:2, Interesting)
just wanted to mention that the SF Bay Area has a non-profit video game museum in Oakland called the MADE (Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment). these folks are really doing great work keeping the memory of video games alive with a huge variety of consoles stretching back all the way to the Magnavox Odyssey, thousands of video game titles, and a dozen or more stations where you can play any game you want, whenever they're open. There are lots of events happening there, like Fight Night tournaments, indi
Must...invent...more efficient...stills. (Score:1)
"Michigan State is the national champ party school? Not on my watch!"
The worst part about that damn place (Score:2)
....is that it is two buildings over from me. Taunting me. Mocking me.
"Hey, I know that I probably cost you some decent grades in school, but that was *YEARS* ago. How's about me and you get together for lunch. For old times sake.
Sincerely,
1943 [wikipedia.org]
P.S. Remember that "special" controller. I do. XOXOXO"
I can't. I want to....but I can't...Must....continue...working....soul-sucking job.....
Good City For It (Score:2)
Good Idea (Score:2)
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If I make a will, I'll leave my money to the games! They'll be taken good care of by my money as each game is given only the best filtered electricity and a nightly rubdown.
I would leave my money to my pet cat but she'd probably just waste it anyway...
Honestly - I wish there were more of these archives or at the very least that every science museum devote a section to video game technology.
I wonder if they have a Galaxian 3 theatre (Score:2)
...because that would give me the one excuse I need [wikipedia.org] to go there!
You've not played Galaxian until you've played it on a super-wide 200 inch screen with five other players!
cheap guild wars 2 (Score:1)