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Preserving Old Computers and Software
Why people save old computers, programs and data, what preservation involves, and why keeping digital history readable is harder than it first appears.
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Preserving Computing History
How old machines, software and data are saved, restored and kept readable.
Computer Museums and Collections
What computer museums and collections gather, how they decide what to keep, and why running historic machines on display is harder than it looks.
Digital Decay: Why Data Does Not Last Forever
How storage media wear out, formats become unreadable and software disappears, and why digital data needs active care to survive over the long term.
Emulation: Running Old Software on New Machines
How emulators imitate old computers in software, what they do well for preservation, and where accuracy, legality and missing hardware set limits.
Manuals and Documentation as Historical Sources
Why technical manuals, guides and design documents are valuable evidence for historians of computing, and what they reveal that machines alone cannot.
Reading Old Media: Migrating Data From Obsolete Formats
How archivists and hobbyists recover and copy data from old disks and tapes, from making exact images to dealing with failing drives and unknown formats.
Restoring Vintage Computers: What It Involves
A general look at the common challenges of repairing old computers, from cleaning and failing capacitors to missing parts, safety and the ethics of repair.
Software Archives and Historical Source Code
How libraries, companies and volunteers keep and share historic programs and their source code, and the legal, technical and ethical hurdles involved.
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How Computers Work The core ideas inside a computer, explained through the history of how they developed. Computing by Decade A decade-by-decade tour of what computing looked like and what changed. Myths and Misconceptions Popular stories about computing history, checked against what is known. Glossary and Word Origins Plain-language explanations of computing terms and where they come from.