Long-term preservation of Doom?

[Trar]

Doom is probably the most popular game of its age, so it might seem silly to worry about preserving it for the long-term future, but sometimes I still think about doing something like etching its source code on a tablet and storing it in a salt mine or some such place. The problem to me is whether to have it written in the original C or in binary, the latter presumably being more understandable as a form of computational logic in the far future.

 

There's a surprising number of things lost to history because they were so common or known in their day that nobody thought they needed to record it. Besides, we could add "ceramic tablet" to the list of things Doom's been ported to, as a gift to people 5,000 years from now.

[openroadracer]

There are apparently several different churches built in salt mines, according to this DuckDuckGo search: https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ftsa&q=church+in+salt+mine&atb=v223-1&ia=web

 

So, why not just turn a salt mine into a shrine to all things DooM? Carve the binary of the source code into the walls, and use carved statues of the various characters and monsters to assist in navigating and reconstructing the code.

[ducon]

In France, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF) archives video games and I think that Doom is in it.

See for example, in French: https://www.bnf.fr/fr/la-memoire-des-jeux-video

https://www.bnf.fr/fr/agenda/comment-preserver-et-etudier-les-jeux-video-sans-y-jouer

(under pay wall): https://www.canardpc.com/jeu-video/dossier-jeu-video/conserver-les-jeux-video-lexperience-impossible/

Edited July 27, 2023 by ducon

[Lucius Wooding]

Or better yet just recreate a bunch of the levels in a salt mine at full scale. There are already sites where nukage is being stored long term, so just put a few supercomputers, demonic altars, and some volunteers down there and seal it up. In 1000 years when the game is forgotten, someone might stumble upon the labyrinth full of radioactive mutants and not need a DOS environment to appreciate the recreation.

 

[LadyMistDragon]

There isn't too much more we could do beyond what's already being done, short of finding a safe repository for electronic data somewhere in a location that won't get bombed to hell. Although I do find the idea of an image of Hanger stamped to a ceramic tablet quite amusing.

[bsharp]

“EARTH—The Archaeologists have found a strange etching on a tablet in the most recent salt mine excavation. Drawn in lines like a wireframe, suggestions pertaining to its meaning include, but are not limited to the following: a ‘treasure map,’ a ‘ritualistic emblem,’ and a meaningless scribble.

Also found in the salty ground-alcove is a long string of lines and circles, wrapping the walls in a strange, unrepeating pattern. The significance of this is not yet known. It is to be noted that these findings are not the only things found in the mine. All information can be found—regularly updated, as well—at your local library, in the Recent Events sector.

Unfortunately, the Archaeologists have confirmed through a quick scan that the cave ends there, and there is little likelihood that any more material will be dug up in the excavation. Moreover, some of the engravings have been washed out by excess salt, and there is currently no way to know what they may have said. The only discernible words as of now seem to be utter gibberish: words like “linedef” and “Romero.” The latter is speculated by some to be a deity to a potential salt mine civilization.

But—as always—I’m your presenter, this is the Daily Starship, and I’ll be signing off.
May the IGU fly forever in unison.”

[Kinsie]

If the Doom source code ever becomes completely inaccessible, you're probably going to have a lot more problems than just preservation because civilization as you know it has probably been ended by a series of gigantic EMP blasts frying all known electronics and all of your videogame time is now spent sprinting from burned-out-shack to burned-out-shack trying to find canned foods while staying one step ahead of the Marrow Bandits.

[Mr Masker]

I can't wait for 10000 from now, when some archaeologists uncover the source code of Doom and an SD card with PrBoom+ installed in some nuclear bunker. They release it to the public and everyone is just like, "wow this game is lame, it's so unrealistic! Tf are these pixels doing everywhere?! You can't even look up and down, it's just unplayable!" and then they forget about it.

 

Thankfully they still have Doom Eternal 12: The New Demons to look forward to, releasing in 12020 AD.

Edited July 30, 2023 by Mr Masker

[houston]

On 7/28/2023 at 12:29 AM, Trar said:

etching its source code on a tablet and storing it in a salt mine or some such place.

 

Got to make sure it has a depiction of the cover, so this future civilisation knows what it's looking at. And to avoid bomb fallout, we could bury it on Mars!

[Murdoch]

On 7/28/2023 at 2:29 AM, Trar said:

Doom is probably the most popular game of its age, so it might seem silly to worry about preserving it for the long-term future, but sometimes I still think about doing something like etching its source code on a tablet and storing it in a salt mine or some such place. The problem to me is whether to have it written in the original C or in binary, the latter presumably being more understandable as a form of computational logic in the far future.

 

There's a surprising number of things lost to history because they were so common or known in their day that nobody thought they needed to record it. Besides, we could add "ceramic tablet" to the list of things Doom's been ported to, as a gift to people 5,000 years from now.

 

The problem with doing anything like this, is that were circumstances to arise where your tablets are the only copies of the game, it is highly probable no one would be able to make sense of the code or put it into any practical use. Or be too concerned with matters of basic survival to care.

 

I understand and appreciate the desire to preserve the past. I am a huge archaeology and history buff. But the bottom line is you can only fight against the current of time so much. Do the best you can, but with the understanding and acceptance that nothing is forever in this world. Otherwise it's just futile stress.

Edited August 1, 2023 by Murdoch

[Shepardus]

The source code should already be in the GitHub Arctic Code Vault. And Freedoom, for that matter.

[houston]

"every active public GitHub repository"

Not sure about that, depending on what they mean by "active".

[Shepardus]

1 minute ago, houston said:

"every active public GitHub repository"

Not sure about that, depending on what they mean by "active".

"It included every repo with any commits between the announcement at GitHub Universe on November 13th and 02/02/2020; every repo with at least 1 star and any commits from the year before the snapshot; and all repos with at least 250 stars. (It also included gh-pages for those repositories.) The snapshot consists of the HEAD of the default branch of each repository, minus any binaries larger than 100KB in size. (Repos with 250+ stars retained their binaries.)"

 

At least some source ports should meet that, and the official id repo has enough stars.

[ShallowB]

On 7/30/2023 at 10:36 AM, Kinsie said:

If the Doom source code ever becomes completely inaccessible, you're probably going to have a lot more problems than just preservation because civilization as you know it has probably been ended by a series of gigantic EMP blasts frying all known electronics and all of your videogame time is now spent sprinting from burned-out-shack to burned-out-shack trying to find canned foods while staying one step ahead of the Marrow Bandits.

 

But just think how much cooler surviving the post-apocalypse will be if the cannibal tribes you're running from have learned to play D_RUNNIN on their skin-drums by learning of it from a mysterious monolith they've unearthed! 

[Trar]

So I think this warrants a bump: I recently learned that Doom (along with a number of classic Id games) has been hosted on GitHub since January 2012 - the GNU licensing was only added this year - and has over 12,000 stars, and GitHub stored its most popular/starred repositories in the Arctic World Archive up in Svalbard in 2020. This almost certainly means that Doom and a number of other games such as Quake and Wolfenstein 3D, since they also have thousands of stars on ID's repository, are indeed preserved long-term.

 

The GitHub code vault program includes a "tech tree" that basically explains what it is and the technology that it's based on, too. It probably doesn't have a '90s Pentium computer running DOS, though.

Edited February 23, 2024 by Trar

[Pechudin]

We could port it to space by broadcasting the source code to the stars. Maybe the alien invasion mothership runs it a-la the Independence Day.

Edited February 23, 2024 by Pechudin