Closed Until January

As the semester has come to a close, the Comptuer & Video Game Archive will be closed for the intersession. We will open again at Noon on Monday, January 5.

Detroit Free Press article

The Computer & Video Game Archive is featured in an article in today's Detroit Free Press: "New game archive at U-M integrates research, play"

Intellivision Games

I bought a lot of Intellivision games off of eBay for the archive, which were complete in boxes with instruction booklets and overlays:

TI-99/4A

We received a donation this week of a TI-99/4A computer along with a case full of games. They all work great (except for the fact that the computer keyboard is missing the 'H' key!):

Grand Opening Photos

Yesterday was our Grand Opening Event. Food was eaten and games were played. Here are a few photos:

Blackbird, Fly!

Yesterday morning we got our HP Blackbird 002 set-up in the game room (just in time for the Grand Opening!) Here are a couple of pictures:

Class Field Trip

Professor Brad Bushman teaches a senior-level course on video games here at the University (crosslisted in Communication Studies & Psychology). Yesterday afternoon the class took a field trip to the Computer & Video Game Archive to play a bunch of games. The most popular games were Guitar Hero World Tour and MarioKart Wii; also popular were Mario Party, Halo 3, Sonic the Hedgehog, and Super Mario Bros.

Here are a few pictures:

Exhibit

One of our graduate students, Meredith Kahn, put together an exhibit of computer and video game items for the display cases in the basement of the Duderstadt Center. (The items are are mostly non-working or currently unused games; boxes/packaging; and books.)

Here are some pictures (sorry about the glare!) or drop by the basement of the library sometime in the next couple of weeks and take a look:

Inside an NES

Yesterday I cracked open one of our Nintendo Entertainment Systems to replace the pin connector which had gone bad. I was successful, so now we have two working NESes (and also an NES clone).

While I was inside, I snapped a couple of pictures:

Sign

We finally got our logo sign up on the window of the archive:

Interview

There's an interview with me regarding the Comptuer & Video Game Archive over at The Video Game Librarian blog. Thanks to John Scalzo for his excellent interview!

Another Student Paper Article

Today's Michigan Daily features another article about the video game archive: "Archive brings games old and new to students."

Technical Problems

Oh the joys of running a usable archive! Some of the technical difficulties we've run into over the last couple of weeks:

* As mentioned earlier, our Atari Flashback 2 just stopped working. There's a complete lack of status indicators on the unit, so no telling what the problem is... I'll order a replacement and hope it lasts longer than a few weeks. (At least we get a couple of usable Atari joysticks out of the deal!)

* While testing out donated games, the refurbished NES we bought off eBay stopped loading games, instead giving us a yellow screen of doom with everything. From what I've been able to gather this means that the pins are probably damaged--likely by one of the games we were testing--so I'll look into replacing that component. We still have an older (and more finicky) NES that was donated. I'm also thinking of getting a Famiclone to have around.

* Grand Theft Auto IV won't load up at all in our new Xbox 360 Pro, but loads and plays just fine in out Xbox 360 Elite. Anyone ever encounter this?

* Our new copy of NCAA Football 09 for Xbox 360 suddenly developed a nice carved ring on the surface of the disk, and thus won't load or play. Nobody recalls this happening, but it must have been one of the units. We haven't had any further problems with games getting carved up, so I'm not worrying for the time being...

Scenes from a Moment in the Archive

I'm taking a rare stint right now as the monitor in the Game Archive (typically it is staffed by student workers). Right now we've got:

* A person playing Assassin's Creed on the PS3 on the large screen

* A person playing Bioshock on the Xbox 360

* Someone playing Fable on the Xbox

* Two guys playing FIFA Soccer on the Gamecube

* A group playing Duck Hunt on the NES.

Have I mentioned that Duck Hunt is one of our most popular games?

Flashback 2

The first casualty of our video game archive was our Atari Flashback 2. It just up and stopped working one day a couple of weeks ago. I plan to purchase a replacement, but first I figured I'd put my long-neglected electrical engineering degree to use to see if I could find something obviously wrong (like perhaps a loose wire connection). I didn't find anything, but did snap some photos of the insides:

Battlezone

A couple of weeks ago, the fine folks at the Computer Aided Engineering Network (CAEN) gave us a Battlezone mini-cabinet for the archive. As you can see, it fit in just perfectly near the back door!

Expanded Preview Hours

We've expanded our preview hours in the Gaming Archive to Mon - Fri, Noon - 8pm.

We've also set our Grand Opening date for Monday, November 17; there will be an event from 3:30 - 6pm that day, with remarks at 4:15.

Friday Fun: Snack or Die

At the blog Snack or Die, Jocelyn shows how to make cookies (and other desserts) designed after your favorite video game characters. It's yummy fun!

Student Paper Article

Despite our having done hardly any publicity, the student newspaper, The Michigan Daily, found out about the video game archive and sent a reporter to do a story: "Library opens video game archive."

Only one notable error that I noticed: I was quoted as saying that we could buy about a dozen new games per month, if we don't buy any equipment. That's not right; the annual budget includes about a dozen new games per month, plus some older games, plus new and replacement equipment. Less major, although we were budgeted a certain amount of start-up funds, we haven't yet spent all of it.

What We Have

Here's a list of the hardware that we have so far:

Consoles:

• Atari 2600 Jr.
• Mattel Intellivision
• Sega Master System
• Sega Genesis
  
• Sega Saturn
• Sega Dreamcast
• Nintendo Entertainment System
• Nintendo Super Entertainment System
• Nintendo 64
• Nintendo GameCube
  
• Nintendo Wii
• Microsoft Xbox
• Microsoft Xbox 360 (Elite)
• Sony PlayStation
• Sony PlayStation 2
• Sony PlayStation 3
• TurboGrafx 16
  
• Vtech V-Motion Active Learning System

Computers:

• Commodore Vic20
• Radio Shack TRS-80 Color Computer
• Tandy Color Computer 3

Handhelds:

• Nintendo Game Boy
• Nintendo Game Boy Color
• Nintendo DS
• Sony PlayStation Portable
• Leapfrog Leapster2

Plug-n-Play:

• Atari Flashback 2
• Atari Paddle with Games
• Dreamgear 101 Games
• My Arcade Turbo GT Wheel with 50 Games
• Coleco Head-to-Head
• Tetris plug-n-play
  

Displays:

• Sony KDL-46S4100 46" LCD TV
• Samsung 20" Ultra SlimFit SDTV (2)
• Sony Bravia KDL-26M4000 26" LCD TV

Headphones:

• Logitech Extreme PC Gaming Headset (4)
• Creative Fatal1ty Gaming Headset (2)
• Sennheiser RS120 Wireless RF Headphones (2)

The one major piece of equipment that has been ordered but hasn't arrived yet is an HP Blackbird 002, for computer gaming.

The best way to see which games we have available is to consult Mirlyn, by doing a command search on:

( WSU= computer games OR WSU= video games ) and WSL= AAEL and WCO= GAME

(Although there are plenty more games still 'in process' that aren't yet in Mirlyn.)

We're Open!

We opened for the first time this afternoon!

Here's our impromptu sign:



Students watching and playing Assassin's Creed on the PS3:



A student playing the PS2:

Moving In

We've started moving things into the game archive room, in the anticipation of opening up next week. Here are a few photos:













More to come!

Every Teen Plays Video Games (almost)

I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but an AP article summarizes a report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project that says that 97% of all American teenagers play video games.

The study looks at teens' video game habits, as well as the effect that game playing has on their civil engagement.

Look for this report to get a lot of traction in the coming days & week.

Opening Soon?

Assuming that nothing surprising happens (knock on wood...) I hope that we'll be able to open the Computer & Video Game Archive by the end of September. It will be a soft open, for a few hours on weekday afternoons as we get used to things and figure out how to run the place. We'll no doubt expand hours as we go along, and plan on having a Grand Opening Extravataganza sometime in mid-November.

Nintendo Donations

Got a nice box of donations this morning, full of Nintendo stuff:

Nintendo 64, with controllers & games:


Nintendo Game Boy & Game Boy Color with games:

The Wall is Up!

The wall for our Computer & Video Game Archive room was installed yesterday afternoon. Here are a few pictures:

Exterior view (from the hallway):





Interior view (looking out towards the hallway):





So now we are waiting for the door to be keyed (should happen this week), and for the equipment we've requested to be ordered to arrive. Then we'll be ready to open.