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Kolumbo
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The Internet Archive is in trouble

Posted by Kolumbo - August 8th, 2022


I am not gonna go into it myself, as I am simply not the right guy for the job, but please consider clicking here to read about it.


If you are not familiar with The Internet Archive itself, you might know one of their projects on its own - The Wayback Machine. If that isn't helping, just take a look around right here and you'll inevitably see how valuable it is.


The news I posted is around 2 weeks old now, but still relevant. Please consider spreading the word about it, and maybe even contributing to the archive if you have some neat stuff laying around. I know I did.


Cheers!


9

Comments

bad news

what a shame. can't say i'm surprised though

I expected the trouble to come from the software aspect of the site

If they manage to end The Internet Archive, it's all over...

the archive must be protected

Oh dang, I hadn't read about this. Was actually just getting into archiving my own site properly, they have some powerful tools for that kind of stuff: https://archive.org/services/wayback-gsheets/

Definitely hope they pull through here... been wondering about the legality of some of the things they collect. But it really is important. One of the few essential free speech bastions still around.

I always thought that the video games part of thr site would be the one to cause it trouble, if any, but apparently not.

Love the archive, been using it for years now to find neat stuff. Recently I started uploading rare finds as well. Literally can't imagine not having the internet archive at disposal. Would hate to see that happen.

Yeaahh or just their software/music/any-other-media part of the site. Like Adobe maybe cracking down upon the free serials they provide there...

Was it maybe you I was talking to earlier about some VHS footage you were archiving there? If not there's at least one other person around here doing some of that work too... I've just been trying to archive sites myself, haven't gotten to a good routine there yet but there are plugins that even automatically archive all sites you visit. My fear there is I might unintentionally archive some admin page or potential security exploit... manual's not ideal though. Too much time.

Yeah I hope they stay around forever... at this point they're really irreplaceable. So much data. And it's crazy how much exists out there. They still have just a tiny fragment of it all.

Wasn't me. I archive obscure DOS/Windows & Flash games. Have a very big music collection of stuff that isn't available online anywhere too, might give that an upload sometime. But yeah, mostly non-relevant gaming stuff is my thing right now. I did recently dig through the VHS Movie Rips community, wanting to watch some VHS stuff on an old tv, and damn that community is thriving. Betamax too.

Haven't archived any websites, but I often visit archived stuff on there. Sometimes to dig something up, sometimes for nostalgia's sake (especially if I'm on my XP machine hahaha)

We need to protect the archive at all costs.

Nice. Where do you find obscure DOS/Windows games to archive? Flash games I gotcha. Seems they're doing great work with that here: https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/

...but maybe the stuff you find isn't even on there?

Didn't realize VHS rips were a thing at all! Interesting.

Ey I have an old XP just for nostalgia stuff too. XD Though I haven't booted it up in ages.

Hell yeah.

Usually home-made shareware and/or pirate compilation CDs from 90s and early 2000s.
Found lots of gems that I couldn't track down online. Or at least easily enough to be found by an average internet user. Flash games too, lots of those on those kinds of CDs. But yeah, they are doing a good job archiving those already with Flashpoint. They even got the fake leisure suit larry ad game, which is impossible to find anywhere else these days.

I wonder, though, would it be possible to decompile some of those that utilize server checks (if exclusive to some website, for example) and get rid of that stuff so they can be run anywhere (outside of Flashpoint, which does have some kind of emulation for that)

Most of the time I'm on my XP machine it's for gaming related stuff. Either installing a fresh batch of old games, or just going through one of them. Currently have around 800GB of them. This includes DOS and Flash games too, which I store there as well.

Would love to build a 98SE machine too some time, but I currently lack the space for another computer set up hahaha

Oooh those CDs are hard to get these days. At least here. Stumble upon some homebrew/bootleg things via our local eBay equivalent occasionally... you really know your rarities there. Interesting.

This guy was working on something like that for a while: https://straberrykiler6789.newgrounds.com/news/post/997750

It got pretty far actually. I was betatesting for a while. Though when Ruffle and the NG Player came along I think he might've scrapped the project. Though one of the goals was precisely that, to be able to bypass server restrictions so you could play anything. Or rather to emulate the actual server response. Would make the .swf think you really were connected. Potentially get past all the old Mochi Ads firewalls and everything... it was a really cool project.

That's a lot!!! Well come to think of it I was up at around 2TB myself for a while, though not all old/small games. Accidentally and irrecoverably erased drive contents sector by sector when I tried making a quick copy of it - wrong order on source > backup drive. -_-' Never do any kind of drive operations when you're tired!!!

Ah is this emulated XP? I actually have a separate computer for it, though have tried emulating 98 and 95 on my current one, it's so much easier now than it used to be. :)

Yeah it isn't easy here either, but I had a good start getting them from people I know, since at some time or another practically everyone had at least one of those. Online is tough over here, people really only sell actual full games instead of random old CDs, but they can be found at swap meets and weekend open air markets (farmers markets? don't know the english term sadly)

Been preparing a pretty decent (dozens) collection of Yugoslavian DOS games lately, to submit to Total DOS Project. Love stuff like that. eXoDOS is great too - better if you just wanna be able to play without fucking around with settings and/or DOSBox. But TDS is the ultimate collection, after all.

I'd love something like that since I can't run some of the games outside of Flashpoint, and Flashpoint isn't available for XP. I want my Flash games over there, you know, feels more natural if that makes sense.

I feel you, CD, I feel you. Had stupid errors on my end as well, ending in data loss and HDD wipes. Multiple times. Been good for some time now, though, seems that period is finally over.
Currently I have 2TB worth of movies, so losing that would be absolutely horrible, I dread it.

No no, it's a dedicated XP computer, complete with a 5:4 Samsung SyncMaster (i know they're terrible, but I had a few as a kid and love them for nostalgia reasons). It's a pretty late gen XP machine though - GeForce 8800GT, AMD Athlon II 630, 4GB ddr2 ram (at one point it was 8GB and I used the lil system hack thing to get the 32bit XP to recognize all 8 but I found it barely did anything except made my PC unstable, so I reverted to 4GB).

I want to build a 98(SE) machine too, but I currently have no room for it - at least not for it to be set up and ready to turn on and fuck around on anytime, you know? Plus, that era of hardware is wacky for me to figure out what to do, since I already run 9x games on XP, so I'd mainly use it for DOS, and DOS is definitely a bit before my time meaning I have only the basic idea of what to go for. Research didn't help me much, I guess it'll be all trial n error. Like in the old days hahaha which is kind of nice in a way.

The days when bootlegs and homebrews were actually an international phenomenon and nobody really thought too much about copyright issues... miss those days. :) That's cool. Open air markets is probably the right word, we don't have a lot of those here, but a lot of garage sales. You rarely find anything of value though. People want to sell things for more than they're worth, and it's all common items... where I've been, at least. It's easier to find interesting things via online auctions.

Nice! Hadn't heard of either of those I think. Have you ever been involved with Abandonware sites too? Not the same thing really but lots of gems out there too.

Regarding Flashpoint, do they have their built-in emulator of sorts too? You can't just go through .swf files via regular folder structure too? Honestly haven't tried their program at all, though I have been seeding the torrent files for a while... before they jumped past the 1TB mark. That's just crazy. No room for that on an active drive.

Anyway maybe there is some other emulator out there that'd work for you too, I know Google was trying something earlier as well, there were a few similar projects but I haven't stayed up-to-date at all...

Mmm same here, though for the most part I've had some older backups or temporary copies lying around so at least some of it was recoverable, I'm not sure I've ever just completely wiped out a larger archive like that before... but you definitely get a bit more careful about backing things up overtime. :) Lost a few sites entirely too early on. I kept breaking databases. Do you have backups now though? You can get extra HDDs pretty cheap second-hand here, especially if you buy a few at once.

Nice. :D Never tried a SyncMaster, but I still have my old XP monitor too: https://cyberd.org/my/hp-l1925-lcd.html

Still have all my old computers for that matter, though it seems the oldest might need a new capacitator, it didn't power on at all the last time I tried it. But if you're at all interested in my computer journey, it went in this order...

https://cyberd.org/my/macintosh-performa-630.html (OS7)
https://cyberd.org/my/compaq-presario-8000.html (XP)
https://cyberd.org/my/acer-aspire-m3802.html (7)

...and I'm currently on a Lenovo ThinkCentre, with Windows 10.

Tried pretty much every other version of Windows there was along the way too, but those were the main ones.

Think the Presario mobo didn't support more than 4GB RAM. I maxed it out before moving on - didn't know there were tricks you could use to have it recognize more than 3GB though! Was really just 3GB anyway.

98 on a laptop maybe? Takes a little less space. But man when you start getting into older OS:es the hardware is DIFFICULT. Just drivers too. You take it for granted now that the computer just installs whatever you need, but that wasn't the case earlier on. You need a CD ROM for any device you connect. If you install Windows 95 or 98 on a computer that had something different initially it's difficult to get the hardware working correctly sometimes. DOS I haven't actually tried though, that'd be fascinating...

The limitations do make it cool too though in a way. :) Agree. Just a little time-consuming.

Ah that sucks, I keep seeing (online) an increase in ridiculous inflated prices for retro tech. Lately, CRT screens have been popping off. Luckily, over here people still sell them for dirt cheap or, and this is very common, just give it away/put it outside for someone to take. Only really expensive stuff is stuff that actually is that expensive, like voodoo GPUs and rare great condition CPUs from the oooooold days.

I haven't, but I've browsed a bunch of them to look for games that look interesting. The Russian one is my favorite out of those websites. Myabandonware has the best vibe though hahahaha

If you like retro games and stuff, I'm gonna take this opportunity to shill eXo. If you don't, just skip to the next paragraph lol
It's a lil team of super cool fellas who pulled together and made multiple old system collections, all preconfigured, with a launcher integration, ready to play immediately. Less than a month ago they released a small first version of an Apple II collection. All the stuff comes with printer and other accessories emulated so you can even use those. Other than that, there's a Win3.1 collection (which I personally love) and a Scuum one. The bigger ones can be downloaded fully, or just the launcher and necessary stuff meaning you can pick and choose the games you download and install from within the launcher. Decent lil option if running low on space. https://www.retro-exo.com/ here's the link, hope you enjoyed this lil shill and check it out

From what I remember, some games won't work properly without using Flashpoint. Usually the ones with multiple files/folders of their own. Not sure what is the deal, as I'm not a programmer fella. Been a while since I tried it too, might give it a spin one of these nights. Nice lil hot cup of coffee on a chill autumn night while playing flash games, comfy times, you know.

I have backups for some stuff, but not for the most of it. Made sure the rarest stuff that would be hard if not impossible tracking down again is safe though, and that's the most important part! Definitely need to up my storage game, it's getting fucky.

Ah yes, a fellow 5:4 1280:1024 chad. Cheers to us and our superior taste, good Sir!
On a serious note, I love that resolution for XP, feels perfect for some reason
And that looks like an actually good monitor! Here's mine
https://icecat.biz/en/p/samsung/ls19plmtsq/computer+monitors-syncmaster+913bm+plus-816762.html

Oooooh damn you got a lil Mac thing going on there, that's cool. I've never seen an old Mac in person honestly, seems like they never got big here - if we even had them. Would love to play around on one of those one day, though.

Gotta up the ram in those other two CD, come on! I like that you have a lil writeup for them too, by the way, I can feel the love for them just seeing the text.

Yeah 3.5-4 is the limit for 32bit stuff if I'm not mistaken. There are ways to work around that, but on XP they do nothing. On windows NT/2000 though I've ready they actually improve performance by a nice chunk. Might install 2000 as a dual boot on my XP machine just to test that out, since it seems waaaaaacky.

When I was a kid, my dad had a laptop with windows 98 on it. It was one of the shitloads of IBM ThinkPads, complete with the lil red nipple, and I loved it! Beat Quake 3 on that thing, one of my fondest early gaming memories. I've actually been trying tracking down the exact model, but so far I had no luck. Older ThinkPads like that are pretty rare here. Windows XP and Vista era ones are all over the place, though.
Yeeeaaaah, the fuckery with getting everything set up initially might be one of my favorite things about older computers. I don't know, I enjoy a good battle with my computers. Most of the times I win too, but sometimes... Sometimes I lose, CD, and that's fucked. This one time, I was trying to get pirated Garfield kart to work with a controller (I really don't know why) for more than 6 hours and it beat me. Took a while to recover from that one.

I have a lil computer that's 98 appropriate laying around, but I haven't had the time to actually boot it up (in place of my XP machine since, you know, space, as I mentioned) and see what's actually going on there. Got it for free from a friend when he stumbled upon it at his country house, since he knows that stuff's my jam. So if that one is gonna work, that's a great thing there - no investment except the peripherals. Oh, and you just knoooooooowwww I'm getting a CRT SyncMaster for it hahaha

DOS scares me, but one day I'll jump in. Hoping you will too, CD, so we can see each other on the other side

Ah damn, I should've maybe saved my old TV for the occasion, seems like if CRT screens are coming back maybe those will too. Just a few years back you had to give 'em away since nobody would buy them. Hella heavy devices though... I don't think the market's really booming for old screens here either, but it makes sense that as more and more of them get thrown away there'll be a bigger interest in the ones that remain. It's like that with all old/collector items really, ideally you'll buy things when the demand for them is as low as possible, and they're still in surprlus, and then when the price starts rising again you have what you need.... ah interesting, I might have some old GPU/CPUs lying around I should probably take care of then... also worth knowing maybe: old cellphones have some valuable minerals in them, like gold plated circuits. Around half a kilo of old phones can have a material worth on ~2,500 USD. Feels like that's another thing you could've bought bundles of real cheap just a few years back, not so much now, and I assume newer phones don't use all as expensive materials...

Yeah Myabandonware is cool. :D I'm signed up to their newsletter. Used to write translations on Abandonia too for a few years, they were pretty big then.

Ah that's awesome. :D I do love retro stuff, even if most of my time goes to other things, wonder if their Apple collection has any of the stuff I grew up with, my first computer was an OS 7 Performa... played a lot of Specter Supreme, Task Maker, Exile, The Zone, so many good games I haven't been able to play for a while now... there's a real treasure trove for those over at: https://macintoshgarden.org/

...though mostly shareware things, and you need to get an OS working on your own there. I'll definitely check this out...

Interesting. Maybe Flashpoint have some built-in code to get around domain-related locks and such too then. Yepp that sounds nice. :) Winter nights too... if time allows that's a good way to spend 'em.

Yeaah the rare and the personal stuff's the important stuff for sure, though you spend a lot of time categorizing and collecting too... unless you use mostly pre-made collections. I used to make my own archives though, still have some with for example webcomics and wallpapers, not so much games, really spent way too much time on things like that back in the day. But I probably do have some archives now that you can't get online anymore.

Hell yeah, 5:4 was the shizzle! :) Took so long to get used to bigger resolutions, and I still think my old monitor had better color calibration than the one I use most now. Movies get a bit problematic with 5:4 though, too much widescreen now.

Ah you had way better resåponse time on yours. :) Probably better than mine for gaming. The L1925 was just really good for design. And all-purpose. Agree it really felt perfect for XP, if I plug in my old computers now that's still what I use. Hope to some day have a room where I can have multiple setups lined up at the same time, and switches/hubs to just power on whichever one I want linked to the same devices, screen etc. Not really a priority right now but it'd be cool!

Yeah the Performa was the shizzle back in the day. :D My big brother wrote his university thesis (never finished it though but that's another story) on a Macintosh 2 too. Unfortunately that one's no longer around. Back when my sister started school I think it was a requirement they had a Macintosh, so this is what she got, and it was passed onto me later. I think PC was more common when I went to school though. By high school it was definitely the standard. Wonder if Apple maybe made it first to schools, and then Windows came along with better pricing and took over... they still use Apple a lot with design though in particular.

Yeah they were fun! Lots of good games for them back then too. Definitely get one if you get the chance, or a power MAC, not sure how the newer ones are but the old = really solid quality.

You don't think 8MB RAM's enough? XD It's really pretty impressive how much you could run with just a few MB back in the day, feels like systems are using more than they need now... but ah the newer! I need to update that text. I think I maxed out the Acer Aspire too before I moved on... the newer one's still at a factory 8GB at the moment but it seems to be plenty for now, I'll definitely upgrade further before I get a new one. Thanks man, and yes I do love these computers :) Probably get a little excessively sentimental about everything I buy, but I wish more people cared for their stuff. There's so much waste in the world. Gotta go for things you like and then really care for them, feels good to.

Aha! Interesting. Something to try out in the future here too then, would be fun.

(part 2)

We actually had Windows NT at school for some reason. :) It's a weird one. Rare, from what I hear. Everyone just remembers 2000 or ME from that timeframe. Played some Monkey Island on either 2000 or ME back in the day, not sure which it was now... it didn't seem that different but I probably never really explored that OS.

Ooh, Quake 3 no less! I played the original Quake on a '98. :D Didn't realize the OS lasted that long... hope you get the one you're searching for. Same here in regard to Vista/XP. 7's common now too of course. Anything older's a bit more difficult to find, but there are surely still plenty if you go via online actions/don't mind a higher price.

Hmm only if you succeed though right? ;) I wiped out an old laptop once and then couldn't even get the CD driver working when I tried to install a new OS, couldn't figure out a way to install the driver I'd need for other drivers, I'm not sure if I eventually did figure it out or no... haha ah man you win some you lose some. XD Garfield kart huh, hadn't heard of that one before...

Ey that's cool. :D You should have a little site for this kind of stuff too, or post about it here, would be fun to see more of.

Some day, yes! The more you dabble with these things the more it calls, it seems... I think I will.