This is a tough one. What I'm finding is there is
very little detailed
documentation
that has been archived on how systems were built, along with the
applications that
ran them for exactly the reasons you give. The best you find are
overviews in
the trade publications of the time.
Hm, overviews could be of greater historic
interest. I used google and
it seems that my docs belong to a paper making machine control system.
And it seems that those are still around somewhere.
What you get from technicians in most cases is not what gives you the
"big picture" of a system rather than drowns you in detail.
For the paper thing, I have binders and binders and binders full of
flowchart diagrams, listings, more diagrams, ECOs, memos etc.
But I have not yet found the machine's design documents or something
that gives me an overview.
Are historians going to be interested in artifacts to
this level of detail?
My (little) experience would say: Not really.
Which does bring up the point of what ultimately will
happen to a personal
collection of such documentation.
Yes. What is a pile of paper worth? If it's
sitting somewhere at
someone's shelf, it's inaccessible. And when that one once
deceases/loses interest, it again endangered by recycling facilities.
Oh, a powerful document scanner seems to be a must-have! That would make
things much easier.
As a rule of thumb, I would save documents that describe how the system was
put together, maybe project schedules and progress reports, and only
overview
documents when the system was in operation, maybe a few hundred pages at
the
most unless it is a VERY large system.
Ok. That's a word.
Think about of what use this documentation would be to
someone in the
future,
historians, people working on simulations, or restorations, for example.
That's
difficult: I assume that my view could be to limited to see all
implications. So it is possible that I or <someone else> just discards
stuff that others would have killed for.
See the Kiel PDP10 docs I mentioned: They were on their way to the
dumpster, decision made by an academic person working as scientific
director. He did not consider the stuff worth keeping. Was he right?
Erik Brens walked along in the right moment, taking it all, finding
people who are willing to pay $$ for it. So the (historic) value can be
considerd a difficult to measure thing.
Regards,
Philipp