Melanie Swalwell

The Popular Memory Archive: Collecting and Exhibiting Player Culture from the 1980s

Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg

Date: 2013

DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-41650-7_20

Towards the Preservation of Local Computer Game Software

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 17-07-2009

DOI: 10.1177/1354856509105107

Abstract: / New Zealand's digital game history includes a significant quantity of locally written software titles from the 1980s. Currently, few people are aware of this, no institutional collections exist, and institutional preservation efforts are directed elsewhere. This context prompted the assembly of a multidisciplinary team of researchers to bring legal, technical, and media-historical expertise to bear on these titles' preservation. This article briefly introduces the game preservation landscape, before outlining the case for the preservation of local game software. It reports on the challenges faced in a pilot study to preserve locally written game software for the Sega SC3000 computer. The initial plan — to secure licence agreements that would, in turn, enable technical preservation — gave way as a more complex intertwining of the legal and technical emerged. Navigating these challenges required a change of strategy: from emulation to translation. Translation — from BASIC to Java — is an elegant solution, in the circumstances. As well as recounting the project's practical realization, this article considers the fidelity of the conserved digital game to its `original'.

Remembrance of games past

Publisher: ACM

Date: 30-09-2013

DOI: 10.1145/2513002.2513570

Creating Disk Images of Born Digital Content: A Case Study Comparing Success Rates of Institutional Versus Private Collections

Publisher: Informa UK Limited

Date: 02-07-2016

DOI: 10.1080/13614576.2016.1251849

Art, Maths, Electronics and Micros: The Late Work of Stan Ostoja-Kotkowski

Publisher: MDPI AG

Date: 15-02-2019

DOI: 10.3390/ARTS8010023

Abstract: To date, most work on computers in art has focused on the Algorists (1960s–) and on later cyber arts (1990s–). The use of microcomputers is an underexplored area, with the 1980s constituting a particular gap in the knowledge. This article considers the case of Polish-Australian artist, Stan Ostoja-Kotkowski (b. 1922, d. 1994), who after early exposure to computers at the Bell Labs (1967), returned to microcomputers late in his life. He was not a programmer yet used micros in his practice from the early 1980s, first a BBC in his BP Christmas Star commission, and later a 32-bit Archimedes. This he used from 1989 until his death to produce still images with a fractal generator and the ‘paintbox’ program, “Photodesk”. Drawing on archival research and interviews, we focus on three ex les of how Ostoja deployed his micro, highlighting the convergence of art, maths, electronics, and a ‘hands-on’ tinkering ethic in his practice. We argue that when considering the history of creative microcomputing, it is imperative to go beyond the field of art itself. In this case, electronics and the hobbyist computing scenes provide crucial contexts.

journal of visual culture

Publisher: SAGE Publications

Date: 08-2007

DOI: 10.1177/1470412907078568

Abstract: This article addresses the shifting, multiple and contradictory reception of early digital games technology. It reflects on the changing fortunes of early digital games in terms of the shifts in esteem they undergo: from novelty to detritus, to partial recuperation as nostalgia item, based on the author's research into the history of such games in New Zealand. Drawing inspiration from Tom Gunning's analyses of the interrelation between technological novelty and the existence of a discourse that makes it possible to express such novelty, the author argues that while the present collector-led valorizing of game artifacts is significant, and the mercantile marketing of games from back-catalogues useful, there is an urgent need for discourses reflecting on digital games in relation to broader shifts in visual culture.

University Of Technology Sydney

Location: Australia

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Macquarie University

Location: Australia

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ARC Future Fellowships - Grant ID: FT130100391

Start Date: 03-2014

End Date: 12-2021

Amount: $846,329.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Linkage Projects - Grant ID: LP180100307

Start Date: 05-2020

End Date: 05-2024

Amount: $474,159.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Linkage Projects - Grant ID: LP180100104

Start Date: 03-2020

End Date: 03-2024

Amount: $573,620.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Linkage Projects - Grant ID: LP120100218

Start Date: 2012

End Date: 06-2015

Amount: $186,000.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

Project FT130100391

Start Date: 2013

End Date: 2017

Funder: Australian Research Council

Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE220100057

Start Date: 04-2023

End Date: 04-2025

Amount: $751,723.00

Funder: Australian Research Council

(Play It Again: Creating A Playable History Of Australasian Digital Games, For Industry, Community And Research Purposes)

Start Date: 2012

End Date: 2014

Funder: Australian Research Council