
The Obsessively Complete Infocom Catalog - homarp
https://eblong.com/infocom/
======
h2odragon
People make good points about how digital media is ephemeral (many then go on
to assure us that this will lead to the Fall of Civilization).

Then there's delightful efforts like this.

This example gives me faith that the important things will be copied and
recopied as necessary, and the ephemeral things that are lost might not be all
_that_ lost.

~~~
criddell
> People make good points about how digital media is ephemeral

I wonder what will happen to all of the digital-only movies and tv shows being
made today. Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, and others are all making stuff that you
can't buy on physical media and so if they decide that something shouldn't be
available anymore, then it won't be.

~~~
vipref
> I wonder what will happen to all of the digital-only movies and tv shows
> being made today

Why do you feel digital media can't be preserved?

There are DVD renditions of old media. Cassettes were popular at one time only
to be supplanted by newer technologies and it will be the same for current
media formats.

To cite an example, I used to listen to cassette music while growing up and
was hugely fond of them (Walkman, anybody?) That was then supplanted by
digital mp3 players, and now streaming over the internet.

If something is worth preserving, newer technology will make sure it is!

That is just my opinion for you.

~~~
reaperducer
_There are DVD renditions of old media. Cassettes were popular at one time
only to be supplanted by newer technologies and it will be the same for
current media formats._

There are thousands (at least) of movies that existed on VHS that never made
it to DVD, or streaming. They have effectively been lost.

The same is true for audio. Lots of records never made the transition to
cassettes. Lots of cassettes never made it to CD. Lots of CD's never made it
to digital.

Just this morning I remembered a song I used to like a lot as a teen-ager. I
looked for it on Amazon, iTunes, all of the streaming services, and it no
longer exists. A general Googling shows there are plenty of re-makes by other
artists years later. I managed to find one copy of the vinyl single on
fleaBay, so I bought it. But effectively, this song no longer exists for the
rest of the world.

These things will happen to digital, too, when we move on to whatever is next.

------
feydaykyn
There's a great podcast about infocom games which is very funny to listen to
even if you don't know/play the games (that's my case)

[http://monsterfeet.com/grue/](http://monsterfeet.com/grue/)

Eaten By A Grue, the Infocom podcast

A podcast about Infocom games, text adventures, and interactive fiction Hosted
by Kevin Savetz and Carrington Vanston.

------
m463
oh how wonderful... this led to another site:

[http://simh.trailing-edge.com/software.html](http://simh.trailing-
edge.com/software.html)

which had the original vax/vms Dungeon (zork) that I played when young. It
actually referenced MEMQ like I remember:

    
    
        <DEFINE FEEL-FREE (LOSER)
         <TELL "FEEL FREE, CHOMPER!">
         <MEMQ ......
        The rest is, alas, unintelligible (as were the implementers).

------
andrewstuart
It would be great if this was on github - individual sites like this disappear
and the history is lost.

------
tedshroyer

        curl https://eblong.com/infocom/ | grep href | grep -v http | cut -d '"' -f2 | awk '{print "curl -O https://eblong.com/infocom/" $0}' | bash -x

~~~
dmolony
Will this overwrite files that have the same name but are in different
directories?

~~~
tedshroyer
I think it would overwrite, but it seems like all the names were unique

------
glangdale
It's not obsessively complete until they have Cornerstone - the database
software that the whole company was actually _meant_ to be about (weird, but
true).

------
techslave
> I believe that the historical value of these documents to the IF community
> outweighs the rights of the legal owner.

I couldn’t agree less.

~~~
techslave
downvotes? laughable. i guess it’s also fine if texas steals copyright and
can’t be touched because “sovereign”. it’s the same justification here. don’t
worry about copyright because “history”.

thievery plain and simple.

