Full archives of Game Developer magazine | Hacker News Reader

Full archives of Game Developer magazine

gdcvault.com

258 pointsjamesbritt51 comments

If you want to download all the PDFs to your current working directory:

    wget -rH -nd -Dubm-us.net -Apdf http://gdcvault.com/gdmag

Edit: for the curious, the flags are:

    -r recursively retrieve all the links on the page
    -H span hosts (default would stay with gdcvault.com only)
    -nd don't replicate directory hierarchy, just download the files to cwd
    -D only download from ubm-us.net
    -A pdf extensions only

I was just working on this: wget -r -A.pdf http://twvideo01.ubm-us.net/o1/vault/GD_Mag_Archives/

but getting a 403 (forbidden). Now I see I should have tried http://gdcvault.com/gdmag instead of copying the link from right clicking and saying "Save As"

You do have a few more flags than I do. I should look those up.

Edit: Thanks for expanding your post to explain all the flags. Very helpful.

But consider using --limit-rate <some rate> or -w <some number of seconds> to add a delay so as not to bomb the server.

On Windows there's Flashget 1.73 http://www.flashget.com/en/download.html and Tools, Site Explorer dialog. It's much faster because it downloads multiple files simultaneously.

DownThemAll works with Firefox cross platform. Right Click on the page and dta OneClick. Fast Filter .pdf, .zip covers all downloads.

I was disappointed I couldn't find DownThemAll for Chrome but a quick check on the store found an equivalent plugin called DownloadAll.

How big is the complete archive?

3.34 Gb according to the torrent.

Safe downloading, everyone; remember to first check the ToS and don't change your user-agent for any reason.

Consider grabbing the torrent[0] instead so as not to peg the gdcvault server.

[0]: http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/8940823/Game_Developer_Magazi...

Once the download is done, you might want to do:

mv GDM_February_.pdf GDM_February_2010.pdf

to make sure the nameing is consistent :)

A cross-platform solution would be using Opera 12's sidebar, going to links, selecting all 'view' links and downloading all at once. Or use Opera to download the torrent.

Is Opera really more cross-platform than wget?

In my opinion it's easier to put Opera (12) on Windows than wget; also, it doubles as a torrent client. Older Opera versions (that still have this feature) had versions for a large number of OS-es.

Wget has already been ported to Windows, and because it's free software, you can try port it to any other OS. Opera, on the other hand, hasn't been ported to nearly as many OSen, and you don't get the source to help with the effort (plus it's much larger than a CLI file downloading utility). Your idea of cross-platform is weird.

Also here is the list of all pdfs: https://gist.github.com/schnabear/6657115/raw/9b8a2527cfeca6...

You can save this list to a file (e.g. GDMAG.txt) and run

  wget -c -i GDMAG.txt

BTW, there are also zip files with code and stuff:

    wget  -c -w5 -rH -nd -Dubm-us.net -Azip http://gdcvault.com/gdmag

to get those

Especially since this collection isn't going to change, I'm confused as usual why they don't include a 'download them all' torrent link. Torrents are wonderful for things like this - reduced hosting costs, often significantly faster download rates, and nearly perfect resumeability even in cases of extremely bad internet connections. Win/win/win but very few do it.

Offering a torrent could be legally interpreted as giving up copyright for the work(s) offered by the torrent.

How could there be anything legal related to the method of file transfer?

Really? I did not know that. Can you tell us why?

It can't.

What? That doesn't sound right... how does the distribution method affect copyright? Think of all the free software (with licenses dependent on copyright) that's made available over BitTorrent. Or World of Warcraft game updates, or humble bundle games, or ...

Ah, excellent, thanks candydance[1]: torrent is here http://thepiratebay.sx/torrent/8940823/Game_Developer_Magazi...

or the magnet if you don't care for ads with boobs:

    magnet:?xt=urn:btih:4396a06317a9a9d757a703a58fcba001c337adc3&dn=Game+Developer+Magazine+Complete+1994-2013+Archives&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.openbittorrent.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.publicbt.com%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.istole.it%3A6969&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Ftracker.ccc.de%3A80&tr=udp%3A%2F%2Fopen.demonii.com%3A1337

It's even categorized by code/zine and year, nice work! My wget attempt was still running D:

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6531569

Thanks, that's appreciated. Not because the boobs but because TPB is blocked by some^W UK Internet providers (including mine).

Ah, good point, I usually don't think of that until much later. I'll try to always include magnet links in the future :)

Chris Hecker's articles on building a perspective correct texture mapper were awesome. In the late 90s, I used these articles to build a software renderer from the ground up in assembler and then added bilinear filtering at no additional charge.

It was dancing on a Nintendo 64 at the time. Sadly, while it went on to get used in a couple obscure games, the HW company for which I created this went belly-up.

I think the most refreshing bit about this, besides the fact that it's a goldmine of free information (thanks!), is the fact that it's all laid out on one html page. It makes me think of what websites used to be like before ads and crazy designs took over.

Great magazine.

If, like me, you lack the specialized knowledge to understand most of the articles, there was one monthly feature worth reading anyway -- a detailed postmortem of some multi-year, multi-discipline game development project.

First was Dr. Dobbs Journal and now GDM. My favourites magazines are all dead now :(

http://www.drdobbs.com/ is still active though

Indeed, but it's not quite the same. Thanks for the reminder though -- every once in a while I remember to stop by, and there are always a few new interesting articles.

They're not dead though. Gd, at least, has been set free and given perpetual life rather than locked away by its temporary owner. Temporary if you still believe the "limited time" clause has any legal weight.

I feel like I've discovered this a little too late. Does anyone have any good suggestions for other quality software based magazines?

I'd like to know this too; where are the best software and software development periodicals of any format? I don't even know where to ask.

Thank you for this. What's interesting is how dramatically gaming improved between 1994 and 1999, and then it kinda became incremental. I also enjoyed being able to see how the graphic design (page layouts, colors, fonts) of the magazine itself has evolved. I wonder if current trends can be extrapolated.

Huh. And I just discovered it and subscribed on my iPad last Fall. Oh well. :)

Where can I buy a physical subscription?

Sadly, the magazine has shut down, so you can't.

Too bad. It looked like a fantastic magazine but I would really like to read it in its physical form. Do you know any other game development magazines?

I found the quote on the first page of the first issue a little too relevant:

“The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts.” —Edmund Burke

Would be nice if I could search the contents.

Free and posted in its entirety online, and you're still not happy eh?

Don't get me wrong, i think its great, but I'm not going to browse hundreds of issues to read about specific topics I'm interested in.

That hole you're digging is getting deeper and deeper...

eh, what about eg:

https://www.google.com/search?q=site:http://twvideo01.ubm-us...

That can be made =)i figured you could just convert the index pages to text and then make a search utility over it.

PS: If anyone makes it, dont forget to post the link! (i don't mind making it myself but i got no server to host it on... Might make it on JS and post as a "static" website)

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/4643438/how-to-search-con...

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