Flashpoint Archive
I’ve just found out about Flashpoint Archive, an application for playing old content created using Flash, as well as other obsolete browser technologies.
The core functionality is provided by sandboxed versions of the plugins that run the content, a proxy server for games that need to believe they are run over the internet, and a launcher allowing you to browse and launch content - all wrapped up in a neat package.
And for the true archivists, there is a version that embeds all the content for download that, at the time of writing, is 2.28TB.
I’m interested in this for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, the preservation of history. I would like everything we create as a culture to remain available in some way (which is why I also support the Wayback Machine and the Internet Archive). I’m also of the right age that much of this was some of the most popular content available on the internet when I started using it.
But also, I myself have some stuff I’ve produced that is hard to access in modern browsers. Specifically, some Shockwave and Silverlight games.
So, for the near future I’m going to do what I can to get my games added to the archive.