Interesting article on preservation

thanks, scott. that was a good read. the sad thing is that it seems like there aren't enough other companies that are really being preserved, as far as midway, williams, etc. you and curt vendel seem to have the corner on atari coin op and home stuff, and i know doug macrae from gcc has gcc's involvement covered, but that seems like it's about it for the most part, at least from what i've read online.
 
It's for sure a weird dilemma. Of course, I hope game companies preserve their classic game assets, but even if they do, so what? All the cool art and code and pre-production stuff sits in a filing cabinet and never sees the light of day? I guess the best case scenario is that they release a product that I want based on the old assets. But so far I haven't purchased many of the "retro" packages. I did buy Metroid on the Wii console with some Wii points I got for Father's Day, but that's it. I don't even play it anymore.

And if they don't preserve the stuff, then again, so what? Most of the repro art/hardware available wasn't made with the manufacturers blessing. The stuff I can think of that does have the corporate stamp of approval has been crap, but I can only think of the Namco/two-bits Pac art.

The only time I can think of any of this great stuff seeing the light of day is when it has fallen into a collectors hands, like our very own AtariScott, the OP of this thread.
 
Fantastic article!
I too am trying my best to act as an archive (hence my computerspacefan website) and on that note, do any of you know a way to contact any of the people mentioned in the article like Cort Allen or Patty Ansuini? I would love to ask them if anything Computer Space-related was in any of their filing cabinets.

I could just Google their places of work I guess but if any of you know a way to reach them and are okay to tell me that would be a great way for me to seem less "stalker-ish".
 
very very interesting - only makes me want to read more and delve into all the links pointed to in the article and responses. fascinating and thanks for the article!:)
 
Very good read, thanks for posting it!

I have a thing for old manuals and hate to see companies just toss out history.
Last auction I got out bid on a filling cabinet of manuals and wiring diagrams hope they went to someone who an appreciate them.
 
Fantastic article!
I too am trying my best to act as an archive (hence my computerspacefan website) and on that note, do any of you know a way to contact any of the people mentioned in the article like Cort Allen or Patty Ansuini? I would love to ask them if anything Computer Space-related was in any of their filing cabinets.

I could just Google their places of work I guess but if any of you know a way to reach them and are okay to tell me that would be a great way for me to seem less "stalker-ish".

It looks like all of that stuff is 2600/consumer related. The coin op stuff went to Midway, and then to me. No CS stuff at all.
 
It's actually nearly impossible.

Often times companies burn down (figuratively) and resurrect under new management.

Activision is one such company. Bobby and his friends bought ATVI when it was on the brink of bankruptcy. They mainly buy the company for it's brand recognition and it's IP. Much of the back catalog was originally retained but when I was there (1997-1999) I knew nothing of the old console code and where it was archived. Everything was about moving forward. They were very PC centric during those years.

Capcom was also one such company. It was common knowledge that they did not archive old code much. I saw old closets full of chip burning materials but with the change of staff and hands, none of it was usable etc. In Japan I had heard that they totally frowned on using old code to develop new versions of games. It's for this reason that when Backbone did ports of the Megaman series etc… that they had to rebuild games from the ground up. They really couldn't port old console code to newer platforms. They also make heavy use of emulation to keep games alive. It's also why it's extremely hard to add feature to it's ports of the arcade games to XBLA or PSN.

Arcade companies literally disappear and all of the development source is long gone. Dumpsters, destroyed for tax purposes, taken by ex-employees… you use your imagination. We see lots of prototype Atari stuff in the bay area for this reason.

US companies are much better with PC games. At least guys like John Carmack will release the entire code base for his older games…
 
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