Random Thoughts Thread

[Nemoide]

The Internet Archive has started a Flash collection too.

I've uploaded a couple rarities to it and am in communications with an animator, trying to find/upload a specific cartoon that has otherwise completely vanished from the web...

[marurun]

Where would we be without Nanaca Crash?

[RCBH928]

I think it's mostly good for web content, since if you just need to run Flash things locally you can use the standalone player, but it's probably good to have someone keeping a solution alive, even if just to play archived stuff.

The standalone player is no good because development will be stopped and will not work on future OSs not to mention its not on all platforms. I don't think it works on MacOS or Linux. Meanwhile this is web technology, and web technology is supported a very long time.

I don't think there's much left in Flash that can't be done by HTML5 and Javascript, at this point.

I actually don't know, but for sure I don't see much animations and web games now days like the days of Flash. What I see is video players which are much lighter and better I guess than flash video player. Wasn't YouTube using Flash for their videos early on?

Maybe its the tool because Flash was also a drawing and animation tool not just programming language/script.

The Internet Archive has started a Flash collection too.

I've uploaded a couple rarities to it and am in communications with an animator, trying to find/upload a specific cartoon that has otherwise completely vanished from the web...

Internet Archive is too good to be true.
I once was browsing and found some older games that were emulated, I think it was Street Fighter. I am not sure how or what technology it used to run in the browser but it did and I don't know how is this legal.

[RCBH928]

That emulator is cool. Looks like they're developing it pretty rapidly. I like that it can be embedded in a website to keep Shockwave functionality.
The archival project is called Flashpoint. The special feature in flashpoint is it spoofs websites into a sandbox on your computer so the games with server-side data pull it locally. Also thousands of SWF files cataloged. You can download just the frontend and play the games and videos individually.

How is this working? Is it maintaining an old browser with all the old plugins running on modern OS?
What was the difference between Shockwave and Flash anyway? It was a rare instance to see something Shockwave, I heard it was mostly used for interactive menus in kiosks but idk.

It amazes me that there are people out there willing to put time and effort to do such thing. The archive is 260GB and someone out there willing to pay for storage and servers to download all of this, not to mention the legality of it all.

[isiolia]

The standalone player is no good because development will be stopped and will not work on future OSs not to mention its not on all platforms. I don't think it works on MacOS or Linux. Meanwhile this is web technology, and web technology is supported a very long time.

The page I linked to has both Mac and Linux versions, though sure, for Mac in particular it may have a limited lifespan.

What was the difference between Shockwave and Flash anyway? It was a rare instance to see something Shockwave, I heard it was mostly used for interactive menus in kiosks but idk.

They were originally made by different companies that ended up being purchased by Macromedia, which was later purchased by Adobe. So while I recall them shifting to market Shockwave more for local content (games, enhanced CDs, etc) and Flash for the web, the origins were really as competing products that overlapped a fair bit in capability.

[marurun]

I don't think there's much left in Flash that can't be done by HTML5 and Javascript, at this point.

I actually don't know, but for sure I don't see much animations and web games now days like the days of Flash. What I see is video players which are much lighter and better I guess than flash video player. Wasn't YouTube using Flash for their videos early on?

Maybe its the tool because Flash was also a drawing and animation tool not just programming language/script.

This is really what it is. Adobe released tools that made it easy to create content in Flash. Sure, HTML5 and JS have largely equivalent capabilities now, but Flash was much easier to work with. There wouldn't have been nearly so much Flash content if people had to wrestle with every bit of the creation tools along the way.