VGHF Opens Free Online Access To 1,500 Classic Game Mags, 30K Historic Files (arstechnica.com) 7
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Video Game History Foundation has officially opened up digital access to a large portion of its massive archives today, offering fans and researchers unprecedented access to information and ephemera surrounding the past 50 years of the game industry. Today's launch of the VGHF Library comprises more than 30,000 indexed and curated files, including high-quality artwork, promotional material, and searchable full-text archives over 1,500 video game magazine issues. This initial dump of digital materials also contains never-before-seen game development and production archival material stored by the VGHF, such as over 100 hours of raw production files from the creation of the Myst series or Sonic the Hedgehog concept art and design files contributed by artist Tom Payne.
In a blog post and accompanying launch video, VGHF head librarian Phil Salvador explains how today's launch is the culmination of a dream the organization has had since its launch in 2017. But it's also just the start of an ongoing process to digitize the VGHF's mountains of unprocessed physical material into a cataloged digital form, so people can access it "without having to fly to California." The VGHF doesn't require any special credentials or even a free account to access its archives, a fact that might be contributing to overloaded servers on this launch day. Despite those server issues, amateur researchers online are already sharing crucial library-derived information about the history of describing games as "immersive" or that one time Garfield ranked games in GamePro, for instance. Unfortunately, digital libraries cannot offer direct, playable access to retail video games due to DMCA restrictions, notes Ars. However, organizations like the VGHF "continue to challenge those copyright rules every three years," raising hope for future access.
In a blog post and accompanying launch video, VGHF head librarian Phil Salvador explains how today's launch is the culmination of a dream the organization has had since its launch in 2017. But it's also just the start of an ongoing process to digitize the VGHF's mountains of unprocessed physical material into a cataloged digital form, so people can access it "without having to fly to California." The VGHF doesn't require any special credentials or even a free account to access its archives, a fact that might be contributing to overloaded servers on this launch day. Despite those server issues, amateur researchers online are already sharing crucial library-derived information about the history of describing games as "immersive" or that one time Garfield ranked games in GamePro, for instance. Unfortunately, digital libraries cannot offer direct, playable access to retail video games due to DMCA restrictions, notes Ars. However, organizations like the VGHF "continue to challenge those copyright rules every three years," raising hope for future access.
Orbquest (Score:3)
The games I look for are never available. E.g. one that I look for is Orbquest, a terminal game for an AT&T Unix system. I doubt that anyone would want to hold the copyright, but it just seems to be gone. (BSD Unix *may* have been available, but if so I didn't know about it.)
There are a couple of others of similar nature and even earlier time, but Orbquest was an excellent time waster.
Re: (Score:2)
The games I look for are never available. E.g. one that I look for is Orbquest, a terminal game for an AT&T Unix system. I doubt that anyone would want to hold the copyright, but it just seems to be gone. (BSD Unix *may* have been available, but if so I didn't know about it.)
There are a couple of others of similar nature and even earlier time, but Orbquest was an excellent time waster.
is this it?
https://archive.org/details/or... [archive.org]
Awful Website (Score:2)
This website is borderline designed to be malicious. Good luck trying to read some of the magazines, you'll end up at a dead end that's not clear if they have the magazine or not.
Re: (Score:2)
Agree - I saw they had a collection of the Official UK Playstation Magazine I used to read in my youth (and the demo discs I'd often enjoy) - They listed about 20 issues, but was there a link to actually read one? Nope! - Apparently they do have 1 issue up there somewhere but do I have to trapse manually through the list to find it? I think if they actually have the item there will be a thumbnail you can click to read it - otherwise you just get metadata.
Re: (Score:2)
So I think the main issue is that their digital archive is a completely separate part of the website. The fact that they have "Digital Archive" as a differently colored tab, might make you think you're in the archives, but no, by default you land in the catalog. And the catalog is much larger than the archive, so most of the entries in the catalog do not lead to an archive entry.
So go back to the site, click on "Digital Archive" even though you may think you're already in it. In the "Magazine Library", on p