The precarious state of classic software and hardware preservation

I agree there should be a way to archive and distribute classic software for as long as enough people care about it. The problem is most people don't care enough about it until it is actually lost. There is a long time between something being actively used and cared about to being obsolete and then to be collected. -----Original Message----- From: Michael Kerpan via cctalk Sent: Friday, November 19, 2021 9:21 PM To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts Subject: The precarious state of classic software and hardware preservation The recent discussion of the sudden disappearance of DtCyber and the various classic CDC software to run on it from the Internet has got me thinking about just how precarious so much of computer history is in. So much of what's out there online (and in person) today is at risk just vanishing if whoever maintains the archive either loses interest (lots of projects over the years succumb to this) , or rage quits (see the expungement of DtCyber and Controlfreaks from the internet), or ends up dying without having made proper arrangements (See the sad fate of the Living Computer Museum, which was killed by its new owners as soon as COVID gave them an excuse to do so) What are we, as a community, to do to fix this and make sure that our history stays peserved and isn't one bad day away from vanishing. Mike -- This email has been checked for viruses by Avast antivirus software. https://www.avast.com/antivirus