Introducing VC&G Anthology
October 23rd, 2015 by Benj Edwards
It is no secret that Vintage Computing and Gaming is in its 10th year of publication (the site’s 10th anniversary is November 2nd of this year).
Ten years is like a century on the Internet. Throughout these long 100 metaphorical years, I’ve done a lot of side work for features both on VC&G and in my offsite freelance features that have never been published before.
That is going to change. Today I’m announcing a new series on this blog called VC&G Anthology. It’s just a fancy way of saying “old stuff from my archives.”
To fuel the Anthology, I’ve dug up old interviews, outtakes, notes, and other writings from my history that have previously never appeared on VC&G or anywhere else.
Additionally, some of the upcoming Anthology material will come from my work on other publications that is no longer accessible. This will be one way to remedy the Web’s propensity to forget things when host sites go belly up or get URL-confused or database-addled in their old age.
So stay tuned — this should be fun.
October 23rd, 2015 at 10:46 am
Looking forward to this. Thanks for all you do!
Speaking of inaccessible material, did you read this recent article?
http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/10/raiders-of-the-lost-web/409210/
The takeaway:
‘If a sprawling Pulitzer Prize-nominated feature in one of the nation’s oldest newspapers can disappear from the web, anything can. “There are now no passive means of preserving digital information,†said Abby Rumsey, a writer and digital historian. In other words if you want to save something online, you have to decide to save it. Ephemerality is built into the very architecture of the web, which was intended to be a messaging system, not a library.’
October 23rd, 2015 at 2:29 pm
Ditto. This has always been an enjoyable destination for vintage computing and general geekery. The fact that content is eclectic is part of the charm.
October 23rd, 2015 at 9:00 pm
Philip,
Thanks for the kind words — you too, tortimer. I really appreciate it.
Yes, I’ve read that article. It’s by one of my favorite journalists, Adrienne LaFrance, who also happened to by my editor for my Prodigy article on The Atlantic last year. And it features one of my favorite people, Jason Scott, talking about one of my favorite subjects, digital preservation. So you bet I read it. 🙂
I’ll post the first Anthology stuff soon — and more throughout November to celebrate the site’s 10th anniversary.
October 24th, 2015 at 12:21 am
As one of your longtime readers (7-8 years, IIRC), I’m really looking forward to checking out your archives. (I’m also very grateful that they’ll be openly accessible rather than locked into a commercial book/ebook, since I’m too perpetually broke to buy one.)
—
Semi-relatedly, in case you haven’t heard about this: the newish “Digitize The Planet” project is developing quite a library of old computer/game advertisements & newsletters scanned in by volunteers from their own personal magazine archives:
http://digitize.textfiles.com/
Jason Scott also posted that “8-Bit Lives”, a major video project that had stalled 3-4 years ago (with a massive amount of interview footage, including very rare stuff with Jack Tramiel), is back in the works:
http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/4788
(I have no connection to Scott, his Digitize project, or 8-bit lives; just thought you’d wish to know, in case you were unaware.)
October 25th, 2015 at 9:36 am
I really like this site, it has held up well over the years. I won’t claim to have been here from the beginning, but i have been following you since at least 2008. Always entertaining and I always learn something new.
-SirFatty
October 25th, 2015 at 4:03 pm
Have you considered compiling a best of for your past articles and sticking them into a book on Amazon? Be nice to own and read your favs plus gives us all a chance to support the site!
October 26th, 2015 at 10:29 am
Magicat,
Thanks for those links — I’ve seen both of those. Jason Scott and I have a long and rich history. It was in fact my early, erroneous decision to initially watermark my Retro Scan of the Week entries back in 2006 that pissed him off enough to create digitize.textfiles.com. There is a post about it on his blog somewhere, and I talked about it during the 5th anniversary of RSOTW too. All that aside, I love what Jason does, and I promote his work whenever I can.
Lorfarius,
I’ve considered compilation books before. For example, I have conducted enough interviews (mostly unpublished) to probably fill three big volumes if I left them in uncut. I’ll probably do a book some day when the time is right. But it’s not right quite yet. Whenever that happens, you’ll know about it on VC&G.
Thanks for all your support, guys!