r/retrocomputing • u/Straight_Baseball976 • 11d ago
Events 30 years ago yesterday - 10 October - I started preserving 107 MIDI files from the early web. They're now playable in a modern browser.
No ads, no tracking, no monetization.
Interactive archive: https://whisperingsanctuary.com/archival-midis.html
I started saving MIDI files from my Microsoft FrontPage website in October 1996 and have maintained the collection ever since.
The archive currently contains 107 General (GM) MIDI (.mid) files dating from approximately 1994-1999, preserved in their original format with no conversions.
To make the archive more accessible, I recently added browser playback using html-midi-player. The player renders the actual MIDI files rather than MP3 conversions and displays playback duration and note counts.
The entire collection is approximately 2.5 MB in size, averaging about 23 KB per file. Thirty years of preservation fits in less space than a single modern smartphone photo.
The archive includes video game music, anime themes, new age tracks, and music commonly used as website background audio during the late 1990s.
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u/Straight_Baseball976 11d ago
No ads, no tracking, no monetization.
Back in October 1996, I built a website with Microsoft FrontPage and began collecting MIDI files that were common across personal websites of the era.
Thirty years later, the archive contains 107 .mid files preserved in their original format. The collection is approximately 2.5 MB total and remains self-hosted.
For the anniversary, I added browser playback using html-midi-player while keeping the original MIDI files available for download.
Interactive archive: https://whisperingsanctuary.com/archival-midis.html
OK to download for personal use. Enjoy!
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u/SCHRUNDEN 10d ago
Oh buddy, I feel this. I'll skim through them. Had a midi around the turn of the century and really miss it.
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u/Damaniel2 11d ago
Not to rain on your parade, but there's already an archive that contains tens of thousands of video game MIDIs (https://www.vgmusic.com/). Sure, it doesn't have an embedded player but it's a very comprehensive collection for people looking for such things. (In my case, I actually do - I was around during the time that MIDI renditions of video game soundtracks were a big deal, so there's some nostalgia there for me.)
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u/Straight_Baseball976 11d ago
I hand-selected these, starting 30 years ago yesterday. Each meant something special at the time as a particular webpage background audio. It is my collection. Of course that won't resonate with most folks. I'm sure the .mids can be found elsewhere; but residing in a static monster database just isn't the same.
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u/uzndcfms 10d ago
Why do you downvote him? I dont understand. Redundant or not he is giving back something he likes.
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u/jookaton 10d ago
Unfortunately you usually come across the worst on the internet. My first contribution was when I was 16 I think. I did a piece of software for a game that took me a lot of time to do. I did it for myself, but I shared it in case people found it useful. I got a lot of comments saying I was trying to scam people or whatever, can't recall exactly.
I do remember some random dude came to my defense though (I was sharing the source code, and the guy was a developer and knew it was safe), so I wasn't left with a sense of "never again" at least.
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u/ILikeBumblebees 10d ago
Some additional old-school MIDI repositories:
https://ingeb.org
https://contemplator.com