----- Original Message -----
From: "Oliver Lehmann" <lehmann at ans-netz.de>
To: <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Wednesday, October 28, 2009 5:02 PM
Subject: Re: Rescued documentation issues
I like this way of thinking. Because imho making
yourself depending on
"higher technology" like a computer to get valuable information as a
desaster plan seems weird to me.
We are talking about old and obsolete machines. If some day in the future
the world has blown up and working computers are no longer easy to find I
think you will have other more pressing issues to work on other then getting
a 1970's machine up and running (especially when the computer controlled
power grid is gone).
The whole point about preserving history is to show how something started
and progressed to what we have today. Sometimes we have dead ends because of
the lack of technology to keep going down a specific path, that can change
down the road and we might be able to pick up where we left off. Why
reinvent the wheel if you can look it up. For example maybe 100 years from
now a key material used in the manufacturing of LCD's might be used up and
we might have to go back to CRT's until something else comes out. Do you
think anyone will remember how they used to make CRTs without some known
examples, tech notes, etc? Anybody that used to make those tubes would be
dead, and any company that quit making them most likely junked all their
documentation decades before.