In the near future, can people wait for authors and researchers to visit libraries, use a machine to review the material, combine their own analysis info a book or article in a monthly magazine?
The short answer is "NO" It is much more efficient for a researcher to search OCRed indexed content. You can literally save years of time researching a topic if documentation and artifacts are available somewhere on-line. It also helps with peer review. You can now reference hundreds of documents that reviewers may not have physical access to.
As the software curator at the Computer History Museum, the compromise that works most often is releasing code for non-commercial use. From a software preservation standpoint, it does put it in an institutional environment where the code can be saved and studied in the future. The most recent agreement is with PARC releasing the code for the Xerox Alto.
"Several nonprofits in San Joaquin County, California, are sounding the alarm as the county board of supervisors considers the privatization of the management of Stockton–San Joaquin County Public Library"
and
"Public libraries in Camarillo, Santa Clarita and Ventura have all been targeted for a takeover by Library Systems and Services (LSSI), a private company headquartered in Maryland and majority-owned by the private equity firm Islington Capital Partners."
It makes you wonder, how the software industry would look right now if that project would have been competition or replacement for windows. Just asking, exactly how much did we lose because of the MS monopoly?
It did survive. NCD, Tektronix, and others sold graphics terminals which supported X It was reinvented in the Windows world as thin clients. We didn't LOSE anything, the market decided the difference in price between a PC and an X terminal wasn't worth the bother.
The guy that posted Bill English's Alto video is on crack if he thinks this is from 1974. The mouse is a Hawley "Mouse House" mouse from the 80's. Real Alto mice are more rounded and don't have rectangular buttons. Bill also looks about 20 years older than he should if this were from 1974.
So why not host this as an exhibition at the computer museum that's a whole whopping 30 miles from SF? They can probably make some space if they come up with enough to look at.
What's most important to keep is quite simple and obvious really: The results. The published papers, etc.
It's an important and distinctive feature of Science that results are reproducible.
At what cost? Would you suggest discarding the data sets of nuclear bomb detonations since they are easily reproduced? How about other data sets that may need to be reinterpreted because of errors in the original processing?
There is some preservation of these going on at the Computer History Museum. I am the Software Curator there, and am responsible for building CHM's collection of software artifacts.
A tape may last, but the rubber in a tape drive will not. Floppy disks may actually be the most survivable magnetic media, since the drives use no microprocessors or rubber parts.
As a contradiction to this analysis, the city of Berlin had a successful tube adjunct to their postal system in the same timeframe that was still in use even after WWII.
Apple in Cupertino still should have one. It was on display for years in the Mariani I lobby. It was moved to IL5 when the new campus opened. The case also contained the wood model for the Apple III, a Lisa, and the prototype Apple II. The case was removed about five years ago. Hopefully, it's in a warehouse somewhere.
In honor of UNIVAC 1's birthday, I've placed
a scan of the users manual at
http://www.spies.com/aek/pdf/univac/Univac1_OperMa n.pdf
There is a nice picture of the front panel
at the back.
re: simulators
I seriously doubt any UNIVAC 1 code survives
to RUN on a simulator. It appears that there
is very little second generation computer
software left, much less first generation.
Slashdot Mirror
In the near future, can people wait for authors and researchers to visit libraries, use a machine to review the material, combine their own analysis info
a book or article in a monthly magazine?
The short answer is "NO"
It is much more efficient for a researcher to search OCRed indexed content.
You can literally save years of time researching a topic if documentation and artifacts are available somewhere on-line.
It also helps with peer review. You can now reference hundreds of documents that reviewers may not have physical
access to.
As the software curator at the Computer History Museum, the compromise that works most often is releasing
code for non-commercial use. From a software preservation standpoint, it does put it in an institutional
environment where the code can be saved and studied in the future. The most recent agreement is with PARC
releasing the code for the Xerox Alto.
Consider donating it to the Computer History Museum
http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/news/07142010/california-groups-oppose-library-privatization-talks
"Several nonprofits in San Joaquin County, California, are sounding the alarm as the county board of supervisors considers the privatization of the management of Stockton–San Joaquin County Public Library"
and
"Public libraries in Camarillo, Santa Clarita and Ventura have all been targeted for a takeover by Library Systems and Services (LSSI), a private company headquartered in Maryland and majority-owned by the private equity firm Islington Capital Partners."
It makes you wonder, how the software industry would look right now if that project would have been competition or replacement for windows. Just asking, exactly how much did we lose because of the MS monopoly?
It did survive. NCD, Tektronix, and others sold graphics terminals which supported X
It was reinvented in the Windows world as thin clients.
We didn't LOSE anything, the market decided the difference in price between a PC and an X terminal wasn't worth the bother.
The guy that posted Bill English's Alto video is on crack if he thinks this is from 1974. The mouse is a Hawley "Mouse House" mouse from the 80's.
Real Alto mice are more rounded and don't have rectangular buttons. Bill also looks about 20 years older than he should if this were from 1974.
So why not host this as an exhibition at the computer museum that's a whole whopping 30 miles from SF?
They can probably make some space if they come up with enough to look at.
Like this?
http://www.computerhistory.org/revolution/computer-games/16
Put it in a separate building, isolated area, whatever. Shoot any managers or bean-counters that approach the area
Worked for Apple
--
Newton, and Pink
'nuff said
Mike Albaugh did this in 1986
Google for
urisc macro package in the net.arch archives.
His instruction was "Reverse subtract and skip if borrow"
What's most important to keep is quite simple and obvious really:
The results. The published papers, etc.
It's an important and distinctive feature of Science that results are reproducible.
At what cost? Would you suggest discarding the data sets of nuclear bomb detonations since they are easily reproduced? How about other data sets that may need to be reinterpreted because of errors in the original processing?
There is some preservation of these going on at the Computer History Museum. I am the Software Curator there, and am responsible for building CHM's collection of software artifacts.
This is part of a 3.5 million euro project over three years.
http://cordis.europa.eu/fetch?CALLER=FP7_PROJ_EN&ACTION=D&DOC=1&CAT=PROJ&QUERY=011f37a73b31:61ba:091d22f8&RCN=89496
I wish someone would spend that much money on the preservation of OTHER software.
A tape may last, but the rubber in a tape drive will not. Floppy disks may actually be the most survivable magnetic media, since the drives use no microprocessors or rubber parts.
As a contradiction to this analysis,
the city of Berlin had a successful tube adjunct to their postal system in the same timeframe that was still in use even after WWII.
I am the Software Curator of the Computer History Museum. We are actively soliciting donations of software, in particular, source code.
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/donateArtifact/
Over 60,000 artifacts of all kinds are now searchable on line
http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/search/
Apple in Cupertino still should have one. It was on display for years in the Mariani I lobby. It was moved to IL5 when the new campus opened. The case also contained the wood model for the Apple III, a Lisa, and the prototype Apple II. The case was removed about five years ago. Hopefully, it's in a warehouse somewhere.
"The strength is that you can reproduce it "
Preservation through replication. If you care about something,
move it to newer media, and verify what you have to detect for
bit rot.
The only way this could be true is if the data were rewritten.
Reading alone has no effect on the data.
No, what you used was the "Univac File Computer" built around 1956. It had a small and a large drum storage unit.
In honor of UNIVAC 1's birthday, I've placed a scan of the users manual at http://www.spies.com/aek/pdf/univac/Univac1_OperMa n.pdf
There is a nice picture of the front panel
at the back.
re: simulators
I seriously doubt any UNIVAC 1 code survives
to RUN on a simulator. It appears that there
is very little second generation computer
software left, much less first generation.