About


About the Blog

Vault 1541 is primarily about video games and toys with a strong -- but not exclusive -- focus on the '80s and '90s. I cannot say only those two decades because Star Wars began in the '70s and I talk about some modern video games as well. Gaming makes up the bulk of the blog but I will do my best to keep up on the '80s toy coverage; it's just a bit more work as I have to dig most of those items out of the basement. This began as a video game magazine ad project in 2014 so as I build up the blog you'll find many posts revolving around past game magazines and their ads, of which I have over 3,500 scans.

I've also been scanning some other ads not associated with video games or toys. While they may appear in various blog posts, those along with some other odds and ends also appear on the Vault 1541 Facebook page.

5//2/21 UPDATE: For nearly two years I uploaded new gaming ads every Saturday to Flickr except one time. However, toward the end of 2018 Flickr announced it was going to charge $49.99 annually for accounts with more than 1,000 images. At that time I was over 2,000 and loved the tag system and how the ads were presented on Flickr but I cannot afford to pay that fee year after year. I'd like the ads to remain online for as long as possible so I had to make a change. Unfortunately, the best free option I could come up with is Facebook. It's not perfect since Facebook shouldn't be readily available to kids and well, not everyone has an account at Facebook. For the first two years I only highlighted one ad in the Saturday morning blog posts; going forward I'll include at least a few. Some companies have dozens or over 100 which is too many to stuff into a blog post and why I don't post them here (Blogger doesn't have photo albums either). At this time all of the ads that were on Flickr are now on Facebook and most recently added to Google Photos. Google does not seem to allow sharing of the full page of albums, only individual albums which is a pain. Also, albums can only be organized through a few options. I chose alphabetical but for some reason a few albums aren't perfect order though they are only one off. I'm going to try and update all of the ad posts soon. Lastly, I did keep a chunk of ads at Flickr and have placed a variety of photos from the blog over there to hopefully increase web traffic to the blog.


Schedule

5/2/21 UPDATE: Originally the plan is to add a new set of gaming ads every Saturday morning and I did only miss one update and then had an extended break when Flickr started charging. They're sorted by company and those that I only have one ad for are grouped in a single album. The individual ad posts highlight a few ads while the full albums are on Facebook and Google Photos (previously Flickr). Going forward I'll continue to write blog entries that highlight some old video game magazine articles and reviews, as well as write original entries. Toy articles and videos will occur as well, just with less frequency than video games. Each year the number of posts have decreased a bit and I'm now in year five which may be the final year I keep up with regular monthly updates.


The Vault 1541 Name

When I was trying to create a name associated with games or games + toys, just about everything I could come up with was either already a real company name, a Facebook page, someone's blog, or in use as something else. Vault 1541 probably sounds like either a C64 fan site or something found in a Fallout game. While I am a fan of Fallout, that's not why I chose to use vault in the title. The first part of the name refers to my basement that's essentially a toy vault and the number is the designation of the well known Commodore 64 drive. As can be seen in the header image, the C64 is a central piece of the blog theme and the basis for the color scheme.



The Ads & Articles Scans

The ads and articles have been scanned from a variety of magazines and the quality will vary. I improved at scanning and editing as I progressed but also the type of paper used in each magazine differs which impacts the final image. Some paper is very thin causing the other side of the page to bleed through. There are many multi-page ads as well, and those often don't line up perfectly. Others are simply old and the paper may not have held up all that well. I've done a fair amount of editing to improve them the best that I can.

I have no plans to watermark any images as I do not own the content appearing in the scans, nor do I have any affiliation with the magazines that they originally appeared in. If you run a website, such as a site dedicated to a game series or game company, I have no problem sharing a handful of scans. However, I have spent many, many hours scanning and editing images and so I do ask that you provide a source link back here if you do post one of my scans on your site.


YouTube

A little over six months after starting the blog, the YouTube channel launched. Although I don't write a lot on the blog, it still takes up quite a bit of my free time so I cannot commit to a specific schedule for YouTube. Hopefully I can find a good balance between videos and the blog, along with a good mix of old and new game content. Some videos are accompanied by a blog post for those that don't care to watch videos.

The opening for the videos is kind of rough but making videos is new to me so don't expect anything flashy. I tried a different opening first that involved Bumblebee transforming, then the one I have now was longer, and I tried an ending but ultimately decided to cut the opening down and scrap the ending. An opening probably isn't even necessary.

Most gameplay videos are of retro games which have simplistic graphics and no ESRB ratings. When I do play a newer game I stay away from M-rated games. I'll mention the games I play in the blog updates which does include many M-rated games, however, I never include video or images from M-rated games since I want to keep this channel appropriate for kids. 


Comments Policy

Comments are welcomed and encouraged on this site, but there are some instances where comments will be edited or deleted as follows:
  • Comments deemed to be spam or solely promotional in nature will be deleted. Including a link to relevant content is permitted, but comments should be relevant to the post topic.
  • Comments including profanity will be deleted (or edited).
  • Comments containing language or concepts that could be deemed offensive will be deleted. Note this may include abusive, threatening, pornographic, offensive, misleading or libelous language.
  • Comments that attack an individual directly will be deleted.
  • Comments that harass other posters will be deleted. Please be respectful toward other contributors.
Vault 1541 reserves the right to edit or delete any comments submitted to the blog without notice (I'm trying to keep the blog family friendly). This comment policy is subject to change at any time. If you have any questions on the commenting policy, please let me know using the contact page.

Thank you!

-Jonathan