ASCII by Jason Scott

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CD.TEXTFILES.COM Needs Mirrors —

OK, so CD.TEXTFILES.COM is such a wild, insane success that I’m starting to think I need mirrors.

Right now, the data’s only in two locations, and I don’t like that. I’m going to make it three, shortly. With over 350gb of data in over 3.3 million files, it’s a lot of data.

But what data! Old games, programs, writings, lists… it’s an amazing collection, one of those investments that’s paid off for me a thousand times over.

There’s a pro-side: all this history is right there. And there’s a con-side: all sorts of scum-sucking sites directly hot-link to the cd.textfiles.com server, surrounding the links with advertisements.

And then there’s a huge pro-side again: it’s a library that essentially runs itself.  I track down the data, and it just… goes up there.

I’m about to take delivery of over 300 CD-ROMs to add to it. It’s going to get really big.

Who wants to step in to mirror? It’s time.


Categorised as: computer history | jason his own self | textfiles.com

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8 Comments

  1. Steve says:

    Sadly I don’t have a dedicated server, but this got me thinking. How can someone really interested in computer history get involved? Why are more people not into this aspect of history?

    Happy Thanksgiving all.

  2. Emanuel says:

    Mhhh, sadly i also haven’t a dedicated server, just some standard 10 – 20 GB webspace. But I’ve still a question – if somebody host it (mirror), what is about copyrights, e.g. of the old programs (CD) and similar. Could that be a problem or is this something like “out of normal stuff” and there are no problems with companys, the still exist today or their holders? Because i live in Europe and there’s a big mix between laws in every single country, sometimes there are many grey-zones and so on… difficult to get an overview.

  3. marius says:

    I’d say have a chat with the guys running mirror.leaseweb.com (http and ftp)

    But you may get better success discussing directly with the employees frequently vising the Webhostingtalk.com forum, instead of using the email found in the footer of that website.

    I have a dedicated server but I don’t think what I can offer would be at the level of reliability you require (basically I change hosting companies about every 6-10 months) and I’m using basic servers with no redundancy (1-2 drives, no raid etc)

  4. while you’re doing this please check for empty directories. i found a bunch when i was grabbing some simtel archives.

  5. “Mhhh, sadly i also haven’t a dedicated server, just some standard 10 – 20 GB webspace. But I’ve still a question – if somebody host it (mirror), what is about copyrights, e.g. of the old programs (CD) and similar. Could that be a problem or is this something like “out of normal stuff” and there are no problems with companys, the still exist today or their holders? Because i live in Europe and there’s a big mix between laws in every single country, sometimes there are many grey-zones and so on… difficult to get an overview.”

    a lot of providers would take exception with ‘hacking files’ being on their servers.
    even if they are in europe.

    yeah it’s stupid, but that’s how they are.

  6. Kit Scuzz says:

    Do you just want the data backed up? If you just need a server you can rsync to in order to secure the data I’d be happy to provide. I can also crawl it every once in a while but it’d be more convenient if you could give some sort of “changed files” log or something so that I don’t have to crawl every time.

    Feel free to email me to discuss it!

  7. Ishenly says:

    Hey manes, how get an FTP server (or service) to download cd.textfiles.com with an FTP client??

    XD

  8. Benjamin says:

    I’m looking for a copy of the DOS program “Memory Master,” a flashcard program.