Switched has a new home! Huffpost Tech.

Click here to visit the new home of Switched!

Hot on HuffPost Tech:

See More Stories
AOL Tech

Library of Congress on a Quest to Save Forgotten Video Games

by Warren Riddle on February 25, 2010 at 05:00 PM

When video games first emerged from the primordial tech stew, the initial creators experimented with a variety of different codes, formats, and cartridges. Many of those styles and early evolutionary techniques have been rendered obsolete, though, and are now rapidly progressing toward complete irrelevance.

The '70s and '80s witnessed the release of a huge assortment of quality games, but some were completely text based and others featured graphics that, by today's standards, would appear crude and unrefined. Despite the lack of advanced visuals, many of those early games were hilarious, challenging, and revolutionary (including these classic PC titles which definitely deserve a reinvention). But, because of copyright, patent, and programming issues, many of the games from that era are in danger of being completely lost and forgotten.

It may seem like a random undertaking for the Library of Congress, but the institution has drafted numerous notable universities, including Maryland, Stanford, and Illinois, to begin saving vintage games from extinction. And, according to The Atlantic, this "consortium is just one part of a growing movement uniting academics, librarians, developers, and players around game preservation."

If you have your own box of stashed-away gaming goodies, and would like to get involved with the preservation quest, you can contact the UT Video Game Archive (sponsored by the University of Texas at Austin), or the Library of Congress's Digital Preservation project. [From: The Atlantic]

Tags: history, library of congress, libraryofcongress, loc, nostalgia, retro, top, videogames

HuffPost AOL Social News Most Popular