TITLE
An Archeological Hunt for ‘Old’ Video Games
AUTHOR
Glenn Collins
PUBLICATION
The New York Times
YEAR
1989
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
They stand there as if they owned the place, row after row of bleeping, buzzing, wailing, boinging, whooping and gleeping machines generating a riot of computer-driven color: pyrotechnic yellows, blues, pinks and purples.But at first it proved close to impossible to find many of the 46 classic arcade video games on display in ”Hot Circuits, a Video Arcade,” the show that has inaugurated a third-floor gallery in the American Museum of the Moving Image in Astoria, Queens.
It seemed like such a simple idea: to create the first museum retrospective of the coin-operated video game. Curators would assemble four dozen historic games dating to 1971, the year the first one appeared. Then the games would be exhibited not only as video artifacts but also as devices that advanced the art of computer graphics and had considerable impact on American popular culture.
”But to our astonishment, we discovered that many games seemed impossible to find,” said Rochelle Slovin, the museum’s director. ”They’d been discarded, abandoned, scrapped or recycled into newer games. Dealers laughed at us when we mentioned games a few years old. We found ourselves not just mounting an exhibit but conducting a conservation effort, saving games from oblivion.”
COMPANIES MENTIONED
American Museum of the Moving Image
GAMES MENTIONED
Asteroids
Death Race
Defender
Dig Dug
Donkey Kong
Frogger
Galaxian
Narc
Pac-Man
Pong
Robotron 2084
PEOPLE MENTIONED
Sharon Blume
David Draigh
Rochelle Slovin
TOPICS MENTIONED
Preservation
PRINT AVAILABILITY
June 19, 1989