The precarious state of classic software and hardware preservation

[Teo Zenios]

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 


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