In April 2014 two completely different ‘finds’ emerged from computer media. New Andy Warhol images and the mysterious disappearance of one of the biggest game failures in gaming history.

Andy Warhol Lost Art Found

Restoring the data from old media is no small feat. Often the hardware and software used to create and store files no longer exists. Also how media interacted with the operating system is very different from today’s computers.

A New York artist Cory Arcangel who has an interest in old computer technology stumbled upon a YouTube clip of Andy Warhol promoting the Amiga computer which was a personal computer known for its graphics capability in in the ’80s and ’90s by Commodore.

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oqUd8utr14#t=14′]

During the live presentation,  a video was made of Andy creating a digital portrait of Debbie Harry with software that resembles Microsoft Paint. The Andy Warhol Museum still had the  30-year-old Amiga floppy disks and with some difficulty they were recently recovered by the Carnegie Mellon Computer Club.

 

Atari Games Recovered from New Mexico Landfill

The Atari was the game machine of the 80’s. Video game archeologists have located the huge collection of old Atari games that were intentionally buried in the desert at Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1983. This game is often regarded as the worst video games ever made.

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PUfTlFD1KBM’]

 An original article from September 28, 1983, the New York Times article, Atari Parts Are Dumped, indicated that 14 truckloads of discarded game cartridges and other computer equipment were disposed of.

Missing Treasure

James Howells from Wales discovered that the bitcoins that he ‘mined’ in 2009 now have a value of nearly £4million. However, he  has accidentally thrown away the hard drive on which they were stored.

After visiting his local recycling centre in Newport, James Howells was informed he would have to search through around four feet of waste in an area the size of a football field to have any hope of finding the missing hard disk. The announcement in the newspapers has sparked interest in a treasure hunt at Centre is in Newport, South Wales at co-ordinates 51° 33.858′, -2° 59.863′.

Further information

Andy Warhol’s Digital Art was Trapped on a Floppy Disk – Until Now

The Invisible Photograph: Part II(Trapped)

Diggers Find Atari’s E.T.Games in Landfill

Found Atari’s E.T. games dug up from a New Mexico landfill