2 1 1 Jason Scott Rescuing The Prince of Persia from the sands of time
Adrian Crenshaw3 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2014–2026
talk · general · evergreen · 2014–2026 on HN
Jason Scott's DerbyCon 2012 talk on rescuing the Prince of Persia source code from old floppy disks, working with the game's author Jordan Mechner. It is a story of digital archaeology and recovering data from ancient media.
Repeatedly recommended as a favorite tech talk and a great example of digital preservation work.
Up next
6 mo on HNDEF CON 22 - Zoz - Don't Fuck It Up!
DEFCONConference
3 HN recommender · 2016–2021
7 mo on HNElevator Hacking: From the Pit to the Penthouse
DeviantOllam
9 HN recommender · 2014–2026
5 mo on HNCassettes - better than you don't remember
Techmoan
5 HN recommender · 2016–2025
10 mo on HNCppCon 2016: Jason Turner “Rich Code for Tiny Computers: A Simple Commodore 64 Game in C++17”
CppCon
13 HN recommender · 2016–2024
7 mo on HNIncels | ContraPoints
ContraPoints
7 HN recommender · 2018–2024
17 mo on HN8 Bit & '8 Bitish' Graphics-Outside the Box
GDC Festival of Gaming
13 HN recommender · 2018–2026
12 mo on HNReverse emulating the NES to give it SUPER POWERS!
suckerpinch
12 HN recommender · 2018–2025
10 mo on HNThe Ultimate Game Boy Talk (33c3)
media.ccc.de
10 HN recommender · 2017–2026
9 mo on HNHow Crash Bandicoot Hacked The Original Playstation | War Stories | Ars Technica
Ars Technica
13 HN recommender · 2020–2026
9 mo on HNThe Engoodening of No Man's Sky
Internet Historian
9 HN recommender · 2020–2025
10 mo on HNComputer program that learns to play classic NES games
suckerpinch
9 HN recommender · 2015–2025
9 mo on HNSNES Code Injection -- Flappy Bird in SMW
SethBling
9 HN recommender · 2016–2025
8 comments from Hacker News
My favourite example of digital archaeology from recent years is link - saving the Prince of Persia floppies. ▶ this video
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 ▶ this video
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 ▶ 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
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 ▶ this video (or read link and the many other sources)
If you've not seen any of Jason Scott's other work, I personally recommend his talks on the Prince of Persia[0], Mario 64[1], and crackers fighting crackers via crack screens[2]. [3] This one is just funny. [0] ▶ this video [1] link [2] link [3] link
I haven't looked recently but I did search a while ago for a 5.25" USB floppy drive but never found any. Several 3.5" though. Also, I haven't done any specific climate control for the books or the disks. The notebooks are still readable and I can even tell the difference in the parts I wrote with a ball pen and a fountain pen. Many of the disks are 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. ▶ this video
How it was saved: ▶ this video I'm sure there was an article about it on ascii.textfiles.com but I can't find it.
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 ▶ this video . But it's archive.org and they push the edge; in part because we don't know where that edge is.