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Small issues like this (along with bigger issues of app review, proliferation of device form factors, and obsolescence of OSs) are chasing creative coders off the platform, as their apps are broken or they don't have the hooks they need any more. No budget, no maintenance.
Kemal hard-coded our app to landscape.
It's amazing that that's the only invasive change he had to make, almost ten years on. I expected us to need compatibility layers, or rewrites to shaders. I expected the music library integration wouldn't make it.
It's amazing that that's the only invasive change he had to make, almost ten years on. I expected us to need compatibility layers, or rewrites to shaders. I expected the music library integration wouldn't make it.
But the other lesson here for app preservationists: bundle your dependencies. Document the versions you used. Bake in your compiler settings (don't leave them set to "default" because implicit settings are hard to recover).
At the time @cooperhewitt acquired the app and we open sourced it, @sebchan and @thisisaaronland theorized that software preservation was a bit like a zoo. We knew we needed to keep the app alive somehow.
When @kemalenver got it working again, I realized that software preservation is more like re-enacting a performance. The documentation trail is key. There's no objective reference available for what it was like before. It hasn't been continuously preserved.
So maybe not zoo? Maybe more like Jurassic Park. We can't be sure that Kemal's recreation is authentic, because we can't compare to the original. I'm pretty sure the frame rate is better.
To my (original author's) eyes the details are all there, but the flaws jump out - were they there before? I can't recall. But @flight404's artistry still shines through, and I'm grateful for that. Thanks again @kemalenver and @cooperhewitt for the walk down memory lane!
