Comment by wonger_

1 day ago

I think this software archaeology / history-keeping is really important. Keep up the good work. These paragraphs resonate with me:

> There is utility in those old tools and interesting ideas to be mined. Recently I stumbled across something that by all accounts should have set the world on fire, but whose ideas needed more time to germinate before blossoming much later. Discoveries like this are not just nostalgic “what ifs” to opine wistfully upon, they can be dormant seeds of the future.

> Computing moves at such an unrelenting pace, those seeds may lie dormant for any number of reasons: bad marketing, released on a dying platform, too expensive, or even too large a mental leap for the public to “get” at the time. I see this blog as a way to explore the history of the work tools we use every day. I don’t do this out of misty-eyed sentimentality, but rather pragmatic curiosity. The past isn’t sacred, but it is still useful.

What's your research process? Do you use lots of Internet Archive material? Do you reference any personal artifacts i.e. old hardware or documentation laying around? Any interviewing?

Thanks for the kind feedback, and I'm happy you felt resonance with those words. I use tons of Internet Archive material, but also stuff from various retro enthusiast sites which focus on specific hardware platforms. Lots of books, I look through YouTube for interviews, and include my own personal history with the machines and genres (I don't want the blog to read like a passionless how-to manual). If I had the physical space for a hardware collection I'd do that, but alas. No interviewing of my own, just research into existing interviews up to present day. The main point is really to let the software speak for itself and see if it and I can be friends.