voltagex_on Hacker News • Recommends
On “Prints”
My favourite example of digital archaeology from recent years is link - saving the Prince of Persia floppies. link to this video
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#jasonscott#princeofpersia#digitalarchaeology
2 1 1 Jason Scott Rescuing The Prince of Persia from the sands of time
Adrian Crenshaw
40K subscribers • 9 videos on Hallway
- Recommended by 3 people: 3 on Hacker News.
- A classic. People kept recommending it from 2014 to 2026.
- Presented by Jason Scott, digital archivist at the Internet Archive
Beginner. No background in the topic needed.
24K views14 years ago3 recommendations
History and cultureTools and practiceHistory of computingRetro computingRetro games and consoles
Jason Scott shares the story of digital archaeology and data recovery challenges involved in extracting the original Prince of Persia source code from old floppy disks.
Video from Derbycon 2012. All videos, with downloads, can be found at this link shortly: irongeek.com/i.php?page=videos/derbycon2/mainlistWhy it's here
3 people recommend thisWhat people say. Highly recommended as a fascinating story of digital archaeology and recovering data from aging magnetic media.
_asummerson Hacker News • Recommends
On “Each New Boot a Miracle – DOSBOX in the Browser”
If you've not seen any of Jason Scott's other work, I personally recommend his talks on the Prince of Persia0, Mario 641, and crackers fighting crackers via crack screens2. 3 This one is just funny. 0 link to this video 1 link 2 link 3 link
voltagex_on Hacker News • Recommends
On “3,000 floppy disk archive (1982–1994)”
I missed that distinction when I posted the link. I'm sure they had difficulty rescuing Price of Persia. If you have some time to spare, watch link to this video (or read link and the many other sources)
voltagex_on Hacker News • Recommends
On “Ask HN: What's your favorite tech talk?”
Your second link reminded me of link (which definitely builds on some of Matt's work). link - C++17 for the Commodore 64. Probable language warnings for my other suggestions: * Rescuing Prince of Persia from the Sands of Time link to this video (was this talk ever given elsewhere?) * And You Shall Know Me By My Trail of Documentation - link * The History and Evolution of Computer Viruses - link
noufalibrahimon Hacker News • Recommends
On “How we made hit video game Prince of Persia”
Was going to say the same thing. It's a very nice trip down memory lane. Also, Jason Scott's talk on how he recovered the original source code from a bunch of dusty disks link to this video
dalkeon Hacker News • Mentions
On “How can archive.org release 2,500 free DOS browser games (Dune, Oregon Trail)?”
Presumably they have copyright permissions. For example, see the work done by Jason Scott of archive.org with the author of Prince of Persia to track down the source, at link to this video . But it's archive.org and they push the edge; in part because we don't know where that edge is.
voltagex_on Hacker News • Mentions
On “Development content accidentally shipped on a DOS CD-ROM game from 1993”
How it was saved: link to this video I'm sure there was an article about it on ascii.textfiles.com but I can't find it.
noufalibrahimon Hacker News • Mentions
On “I found one of my first programs (Java, 2011) on the Wayback Machine and it runs”
…re damaged with fungal growth on the magnetic medium and I doubt I'd be able to read them even with a drive. It's quite challenging to read off an old disk. Jason Scott (the famous digital archivist) had a nice talk on recovering the original source code for Jordan Mechner's Prince of Persia from ancient disks that mentions some of the challenges. link to this video…