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1. themightyglider (themightyglider@gnusocial.de)'s status on Tuesday, 03-Oct-2017 20:22:21 EDT themightyglider
   Cool news! After I had the idea of playing retro-games from archive.org with a local installed emulator, I've build a very simple prototype that allowed me to play games from their SEGA MASTERSYSTEM-collection with mednafen and wrote a email to the archive, explaining my idea. Now I got an answer by the archive-team. They say that they are fine with my idea and I can work on this project.
   The next step will be to create a frontend for mednafen that allows to browse trough the games on archive.org and play them. My mainly targeted platform will be single board computers like the raspberry pi. I dream of a cheap DIY console people can connect to their TV and discover classic gaming without pirating roms from any shady websites. #retrogaming
   1. Eric Duhamel (ericxdu23@loadaverage.org)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2017 11:01:26 EDT Eric Duhamel

      in reply to
      @themightyglider this is a GREAT project! I hear mednafen is speculated as a GNOME app, so perhaps it will be very accessible and exposed in the future?
      1. themightyglider (themightyglider@gnusocial.de)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2017 12:23:07 EDT themightyglider

         in reply to
         @ericxdu23 If this is true I should consider to use GTK for the frontend. But there also other platforms on the archive that would need other emulators.
      2. themightyglider (themightyglider@gnusocial.de)'s status on Wednesday, 04-Oct-2017 20:20:42 EDT themightyglider

         in reply to
         @ericxdu23 If I think about this some longer I start to belive that I should write a commandline-tool instead of a frontend. The tool will be called with a archive-URL and run the game with a suitable emulator that can be defined in a config-file. Writing a frontend for this would be a trivial task. This way the tool can also be integrated in existing projects like RetroArch easyly.
   2. Kei Kebreau (kkebreau@quitter.se)'s status on Thursday, 05-Oct-2017 08:38:24 EDT Kei Kebreau

      in reply to
      @themightyglider Wow! This sounds pretty cool! Please keep us updated. :-)
      1. themightyglider (themightyglider@gnusocial.de)'s status on Monday, 09-Oct-2017 05:45:21 EDT themightyglider

         in reply to
         @kkebreau @ericxdu23 Yesterday I've found some time to work on this project. So far my little tool supports SEGA consoles (master system, genesis, game gear) via mednafen and Atari 2600 via stella. Today I will try to add support for Arcade-Games via mame. If this is done I will release version 0.1 for everyone to try it out. BTW As long nobody comes up with a better name I think I will call my tool #PlayArchive .
      2. themightyglider (themightyglider@gnusocial.de)'s status on Tuesday, 10-Oct-2017 15:25:20 EDT themightyglider

         in reply to
         @kkebreau @ericxdu23
         I'm done!
         Here is version 0.1 of #PlayArchive . Feel free to try it out and give me feedback how it works fpr you.
         
         https://notabug.org/themightyglider/PlayArchive
         
         #InternetArchive #RetroGaming
         1. Kei Kebreau (kkebreau@quitter.se)'s status on Tuesday, 10-Oct-2017 20:20:08 EDT Kei Kebreau

            in reply to
            @themightyglider @ericxdu23 When I get the time, I'll see if I can write Guix package definitions for the required emulators.
            1. themightyglider (themightyglider@gnusocial.de)'s status on Tuesday, 10-Oct-2017 22:54:39 EDT themightyglider

               in reply to
               @kkebreau @ericxdu23 Sounds cool!
               1. themightyglider (themightyglider@gnusocial.de)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2017 01:41:26 EDT themightyglider

                  in reply to
                  @ericxdu23 @kkebreau I've set PlayArchive's repo into private mode now. I have done this after a discussion with the RetroPie community that left me behind unsure about the legal status uf my project. After this I checked the mail that I received from the archive. It only says that archive.org is fine with this project and won't sue me or something. But whats about the rightholders of the games? Actually it looks to me like klicking on the play online button on archive.org could allready be illigal at some countries because your browser will load inside its catch. I will write another mail to the archive today and if I won't get a satisficing answer I have to drop this project.
                  1. themightyglider (themightyglider@gnusocial.de)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2017 02:45:51 EDT themightyglider

                     in reply to
                     @ericxdu23 @kkebreau Maybe I should go a step further and stop working on this no matter what the archive will tell me. They can't garantee me that my autorship of a tool like this won't fall back on me someday. I mean the copyright industry is growing and if they see any chance to squeeze a little bit of profit out of this early artefacts of our digital era... Who knows what they will do? I don't wanna find out.
                     1. Kei Kebreau (kkebreau@quitter.se)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2017 09:34:13 EDT Kei Kebreau

                        in reply to
                        @themightyglider @ericxdu23 I believe that the Internet Archive has been granted a DMCA exception to archive vintage software.
                        1. Kei Kebreau (kkebreau@quitter.se)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2017 09:35:40 EDT Kei Kebreau

                           in reply to
                           @ericxdu23 @themightyglider I don't know how that might apply to "downloading" (whatever that means legally) the software and using it.
                           1. themightyglider (themightyglider@gnusocial.de)'s status on Thursday, 12-Oct-2017 11:47:25 EDT themightyglider

                              in reply to
                              @kkebreau @ericxdu23 I think the problem is even if you play the game in browser on archive.org the rom file is 'downloaded' temporary. https://gnusocial.de/attachment/4389001
                              1. Kei Kebreau (kkebreau@quitter.se)'s status on Friday, 13-Oct-2017 19:24:54 EDT Kei Kebreau

                                 in reply to
                                 @themightyglider @ericxdu23 This reminds me of the general issue of streaming copyrighted material. I guess we'll see what happens.
                              2. themightyglider (themightyglider@gnusocial.de)'s status on Saturday, 14-Oct-2017 15:04:00 EDT themightyglider

                                 in reply to
                                 @ericxdu23 @kkebreau This is something I think about too. For example when I made Elemental Mages for this game jam I only had 2,5 weeks and ended up with a game that feels very much like something out of the 8bit era. Ok... to be honest the game is very incomplete and the controls feel kinda slugish but if I had 5 weeks instead I'm sure I would have ended up with a cool 8bit style game. With modern tools it is easy to build something that can compete with the old games out of the 80s/90s within weeks. I ask me why it dosn't happen that often.
                                 1. themightyglider (themightyglider@gnusocial.de)'s status on Saturday, 14-Oct-2017 15:22:54 EDT themightyglider

                                    in reply to
                                    @ericxdu23 @kkebreau i would realy like to make a 8bit style arpg like Ys(I belive nobody knows this game any more) I think it would take 4-5 weeks to make an engine for this and another 4-5 weeks to make maps, sprites and story. Maybe I will do this sometime in the near future.
                                    1. Eric Duhamel (ericxdu23@loadaverage.org)'s status on Sunday, 15-Oct-2017 00:07:01 EDT Eric Duhamel

                                       in reply to
                                       @themightyglider A person or two I used to follow on Twitter used to mention that game. I think there's a small following. They were VGM nerds.
                                 2. Eric Duhamel (ericxdu23@loadaverage.org)'s status on Sunday, 15-Oct-2017 00:20:23 EDT Eric Duhamel

                                    in reply to
                                    @themightyglider A series of game jams for retro-conceptual games released with an open-source and libre culture license would be really nice.
                                    1. themightyglider (themightyglider@gnusocial.de)'s status on Sunday, 15-Oct-2017 04:18:10 EDT themightyglider

                                       in reply to
                                       @ericxdu23 This sounds like a very cool idea! I think there are not enough GameJams in the free software gaming comunity. Something like this could realy bring new impulses to develpoment.
                                       1. Eric Duhamel (ericxdu23@loadaverage.org)'s status on Sunday, 15-Oct-2017 20:07:45 EDT Eric Duhamel

                                          in reply to
                                          @themightyglider might be worth delving around to see how many 8-bit style gamejam games have been released GPL or MIT or whatevs.
                                          1. zoowar (zoowar@indy.im)'s status on Sunday, 15-Oct-2017 20:29:37 EDT zoowar

                                             in reply to
                                             what-dev-er
                                             1. Eric Duhamel (ericxdu23@loadaverage.org)'s status on Tuesday, 17-Oct-2017 00:13:08 EDT Eric Duhamel

                                                in reply to
                                                @zoowar good one!
                                          2. themightyglider (themightyglider@gnusocial.de)'s status on Sunday, 15-Oct-2017 20:31:54 EDT themightyglider

                                             in reply to
                                             @ericxdu23 I remember that some participants of LOWREZJAM released their code under a free license. Another thing that would be really helpful is some engine that focuses on retro style games. I mean on the one hand you have generic frameworks like LÖVE or pygame that are powerfull but force you to care about stuff like input handling or initializing a window, on the other hand there are fantasy consoles like TIC-80 that come with all tools you need to get done but are very restrictiv. Something between them would be nice. Some solution that offers you a screen of fixed size, 'virtual' yousticks like a fantasy console but let you all the freedom otherwise. This would be great for retro style games.
                     2. Eric Duhamel (ericxdu23@loadaverage.org)'s status on Saturday, 14-Oct-2017 07:35:55 EDT Eric Duhamel

                        in reply to
                        Copyright maximalism cooling effect affects proliferation of historical culture. :-( Perhaps it *is* better to focus on creating classically inspired libre culture video games that can be played anywhere.