Author Archives: Jason Scott

The Hidden Shifting Lens of Browsers

Posted on August 16, 2016 by Jason Scott

Some time ago, I wrote about the interesting situation we had with emulation and Version 51 of the Chrome browser – that is, our emulations stopped working in a very strange way and many people came to the Archive’s inboxes … Continue reading →

Posted in Emulation, Technical, Wayback Machine | 2 Comments

Microphone Check: Thousands of Hip-Hop Mixtapes at the Archive

Posted on August 7, 2016 by Jason Scott

The Internet Archive has been growing an interesting sub-collection of music for the past few months: Hip-Hop Mixtapes. The resulting collection still has a way to go before it’s anywhere near what is out there (limited by bandwidth and a few other … Continue reading →

Posted in Announcements, Music, News | 2 Comments

Those Hilarious Times When Emulations Stop Working

Posted on June 27, 2016 by Jason Scott

Jason Scott, Software Curator and Your Emulation Buddy, writing in. With tens of thousands of items in the archive.org stacks that are in some way running in-browser emulations, we’ve got a pretty strong library of computing history afoot, with many more joining … Continue reading →

Posted in Emulation, Software Archive, Technical | 2 Comments

Truck and Back Again: The Internet Archive Truck Takes a Detour

Posted on April 20, 2016 by Jason Scott

When one of our employees came out of his home over the weekend, he saw an empty parking space. Granted, in San Francisco, that’s a pretty precious thing, but since this empty parking space had held the Internet Archive Truck … Continue reading →

Posted in Announcements, Cool items | 9 Comments

Saving 500 Apple II Programs from Oblivion

Posted on March 4, 2016 by Jason Scott

Among the tens of thousands of computer programs now emulated in the browser at the Internet Archive, a long-growing special collection has hit a milestone: the 4am Collection is now past 500 available Apple II programs preserved for the first time. … Continue reading →

Posted in Emulation, Software Archive | 12 Comments

Internet Archive Does Windows: Hundreds of Windows 3.1 Programs Join the Collection

Posted on February 11, 2016 by Jason Scott

Microsoft Windows was, to some people, too little, too late. Released as Version 1.0 in 1985, the graphic revolution was already happening elsewhere, with other computer operating systems – but Microsoft was determined to catch up, no matter what it … Continue reading →

Posted in Emulation, Software Archive | 100 Comments

The Internet Archive Telethon Pt. 3

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Jason Scott

See also Parts 1 and 2. We dreamed up the idea of an Internet Archive Telethon, and due to the work of employees, volunteers, and performers, we put together an (almost) 24-hour show. We had an amazing time doing it. But … Continue reading →

Posted in Cool items, Event, News | 1 Comment

The Internet Archive Telethon Pt. 2

Posted on December 27, 2015 by Jason Scott

See also Parts 1 and 3. The Internet Archive Telethon 2015 began at noon on December 19th, and almost immediately we had things go pretty crazy. The co-hosts (Jason Scott and Michelle Krasowski) and the opening staff of the Cortex got used … Continue reading →

Posted in Event, News | Comments Off

The Internet Archive Telethon Pt. 1

Posted on December 26, 2015 by Jason Scott

See also Parts 2 and 3. The thinking was rather simple: The Internet Archive holds a year-end fundraising drive to encourage donations and recurring donations to provide the great service it does to the world. It does this in recent … Continue reading →

Posted in Event, News | Comments Off

The Internet Archive Telethon: December 19th-20th! Tickets Available!

Posted on December 11, 2015 by Jason Scott

To spice up our end-of-year fundraising drive, a number of employees of the Internet Archive are going to be hosting a 24-hour Telethon at our 300 Funston Location! This will not only be a livestreamed event, but in a grand … Continue reading →

Posted in Announcements, News | Comments Off

A Treasure Trove of Adventure and Uploading

Posted on October 18, 2015 by Jason Scott

The Internet Archive opens its doors and drives towards a goal of Universal Access to Knowledge, and encourages contributions and uploads from our audience on a global scale. In some cases, like our Netlabels section, the contributors are often the … Continue reading →

Posted in Announcements, Books Archive, Cool items | Comments Off

Experiment with One Million Album Covers

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Jason Scott

As might be expected, the Internet Archive has lots of data in its virtual stacks. Besides the books, movies and stored webpages, there are datasets provided from the Internet at large or from individual contributors. But datasets are just big … Continue reading →

Posted in Announcements, News | 1 Comment

Making Your DOS Programs Live Again at the Internet Archive

Posted on May 8, 2015 by Jason Scott

Since the beginning of the year, the Internet Archive has been making a large amount of DOS-based games and programs run in the browser, much like our Console Living Room and Internet Arcade collections. Many thousands of people have stopped … Continue reading →

Posted in Software Archive | Comments Off

Mirroring the Stone Oakvalley Music Collection

Posted on January 13, 2015 by Jason Scott

The Internet Archive has begun mirroring a fantastic collection of music called the “Stone Oakvalley Music Collection”. When you visit one of their websites, the archive.org mirror is one of the choices for download. Going forward, the Archive will offer a … Continue reading →

Posted in Cool items, Software Archive | Comments Off

Inviting the Internet Over to Play

Posted on November 5, 2014 by Jason Scott

At our Annual Event last week, the Archive announced a variety of new projects and plans, including our new beta interface, our compact book scanner, and our progress in tracking political ads on television. The event (full video is here) … Continue reading →

Posted in Announcements, News, Software Archive | 3 Comments

Free the Screenshots!

Posted on July 14, 2014 by Jason Scott

As the Archive moves more widely into the archiving of software, it quickly becomes apparent that there’s going to be an awful lot of programs online without much indication of what they are. With many thousands of programs or program … Continue reading →

Posted in News, Software Archive | Comments Off

The Console Living Room Expands

Posted on May 27, 2014 by Jason Scott

Back on the day after Christmas, we announced the Console Living Room, a collection of console games dating from the 1970s through the 1980s that could be played right in your browser, with no plugins or installation necessary. With over … Continue reading →

Posted in News | 2 Comments

The Internet Archive Declares Spacewar!

Posted on April 28, 2014 by Jason Scott

Like everything else in history, debate rages about when the “first” video game came into being. Games and demonstrations such as “Tennis for Two” (1958), “NIM” (1951) and “Mouse in the Maze” (1959), played on million dollar equipment for the … Continue reading →

Posted in Announcements, News, Software Archive | 6 Comments

New Software Collection: Making the Business Case

Posted on February 14, 2014 by Jason Scott

The Internet Archive continues its goal of bringing the same experience of older software that we have with movies, books and audio. This newest collection, just in time for Valentine’s Day (?), is called The Business Case, and is a continually-growing … Continue reading →

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Still Life, With Emulator: The JSMESS FAQ

Posted on December 31, 2013 by Jason Scott

The announcements of the Console Living Room and the Historical Software Collection have brought a large amount of attention to the JSMESS emulator that archive.org uses. Naturally, being a relatively new method of playing software in a browser, there are … Continue reading →

Posted in News | 13 Comments