Ask HN: Is GitHub the solution to computing history disappearing?

1 point

8 years ago

There's lots of little sites run by vintage computing enthusiasts. These sites often have scans of old manuals and magazines and other info. They often also have what might in some cases be the only copy of software for those old machines, sometimes in weird formats such as mp3's of audio cassette tapes.

Consider this site: http://www.trailingedge.com/exidy/

and this site: https://www.classic-computers.org.nz/blog/2017-01-23-software-for-real-sorcerers.htm

But these websites disappear, like this site is now gone: http://archive.li/1JhNz

Whatever software and other stuff he had on there now seems to be gone forever.

So what's the solution? How can we ensure this computing history does not disappear when those individual websites go down?

Maybe it's github, but its worth remembering that many of these vintage computing enthusiasts don't know anything about git and probably don't want to in some cases. Asking them to use github might not lead to the desired outcome.

Maybe there needs to be some sort of search engine/aggregator/website mirror for vintage computing that is replicated and distributed. Maybe it uses github tranparently as a back end?

Thoughts, ideas?

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