In the basement of an unassuming suburban home just outside Washington, D.C., you’ll find one of the largest collections of documents, data, images and props from Origin Systems, the company behind the Ultima and Wing Commander game series of the 80s and 90s.

The Origin Museum is owned and curated by Joe Garrity, and has been running since 1999, when Garrity lived in Virginia. Over the past 18 years, former Origin staff have donated entire offices worth of documents and even source code to the museum.

When Electronic Arts needed someone to catalogue their Origin Systems holdings, it was Garrity that they turned to. The museum’s collection of continuity polaroids from the production of Wing Commander: Prophecy were scanned and used in the 2003 Game Boy Advance version of the game.

And the development documents that GOG.com bundles with its Origin games were all originally scanned by the museum before being published on the Ultima Codex and Wing Commander Combat Information Centre fan sites by Garitty’s long-time collaborators Kenneth Kully and Ben Lesnick.