Vintage Software Preservation?

[sysop]

Greetings!

I'm not a collector of vintage hardware but I do have some original PC software that dates to the early eighties, mostly in the form of games and operating systems. I was wondering what your thoughts are on preserving original packaged software?

There seems to be two schools of thought. First, the only software that is needed for preservation is the programming languages and operating systems that ran within the capabilities of the vintage computer you collect. Any type of software could then be produced. Secondly, all original software should be archived for historical and educational purposes.

Does old software have tangible value today?

Any thoughts?

[Andrew Armstrong]

I think you'll find there is the "we'll not bother preserving it because there are so many copies already (of which we have hundreds)" and the "Preserve every copy".

I've never, ever heard of "only software that is needed for preservation is the programming languages and operating systems that ran within the capabilities of the vintage computer you collect. Any type of software could then be produced.". Do you know how long it takes to learn a dead programming language on hardware no one (or very few people) have used for 20-40 years? It takes months to years to make new Commodore era games, just like it did then, heh.

I've never heard of it, at least from the museums, archives and game collectors. Who told you this?

The only problem is when it comes down to physical space, and some collections simply can't accept everything. In this case, since we have no major tested and reliable way of sorting digital copies of software (that I know of anyway), this will be a problem if people are of a "Bin it or donate it" mentality. There are some projects slowly working on some standards and solutions to making reliable, tested digital copies of software, but usually laws require the originals be kept somewhere anyway.

They take a lot less space then actual hardware however, even old school tape, "hard disks" (literal ones), floppies, whatever are a tiny amount of space compared to most of the hardware, if you don't mind losing or compressing boxes etc. - manuals might be hefty too however.

If you want to donate such stuff, there's certainly places which will take it. Here's a brief list of game places I maintain, but most are general computer software archives/museums too.

[sysop]

Gracious Andrew, a little hostility in that reply. Then again, I saw the Preservation SIG you belong to and it explains a lot. No problem friend.

It doesn't take years to create game or application program for the Commodore. It's primary programming language is Basic held in ROM. As long as the unit functions software can be created quickly. This goes for any machine that can use basic and most can. Basic is far from DEAD.

Code:

Print "Hello World"

Simple right?

As long as collectors keep there old computers operating and have a programming language and it's OS any type of software can be created, "within the capabilities of the computer it's running on."

What else do you need?

[Moondog]

Commercial applications were more likely written in some other language than BASIC, then compiled into machine code.  That's the best way to take advantage of the hardware directly and eliminate the extra processing required to translate through BASIC.  The programmer had to have knowledge of specialized hardware (such as the SID in the case of the C-64) and know how to directly access it's features.

[Andrew Armstrong]

No, it's not hard to write hello world. Wikipedia lists almost every langauge's Hello World...

Writing a game from scratch? With original music and sound? Much harder. A one man job can take, part time (who has the money to do it full time?) a year, no doubt. Okay, call it a month. Do you have months of time to provide enough (whatever "enough" is) software for a single language on a single machine?

Anyway, that's like the most simple example I could readily think of.

Software is by no means an unlimited, easy to create resource (haha, well, it isn't really). Having programs written, and highly optimised for their day, speaks volumes on how actual hardware was used. Building software now would be second-guessing and no where near production ready (and without the resources of the time, quite likely would take ages to debug - especially if there is no such thing as a terminal). Anything past the home computer stage and you're also asking for trouble - past the BASIC-era stage, with no compiler and of course no code to base your program on, you are asking for trouble.

Let's not get into the argument that most software inherently has some qualities that cannot be reproduced, just like art. If we lose all copies of it, there's honestly no way to recreate it from scratch, like it or not.

I know you're pretty much goading me into answering like this, but whatever, if my initial argument didn't win you over this won't will it? I'm sure if you think it's going to be thrown out, it'll go in the bin regardless eh?

[RedWolf]

This is one of the most bizarre conversations I've ever read.

(Welcome to the forum, sysop, by the way.)

Sysop, are you actually arguing that we should not save software because all of it can be recreated later in the future?  I don't want to believe you're actually implying that, because it's absurd.  Perhaps we're mistaken about what you're actually asking.

But I believe that yes, all software should be preserved because each piece of software is a unique work of art and a cultural artifact that is literally impossible to recreate.  Each is the product of the unique set of circumstances that led to its creation, from what the author ate for breakfast that day, to the cultural fads of the time, to the programming language and operating system used, etc.

To say we can trash the software is like saying that we should save only the record player and trash all the records because we can theoretically recreate all the music other people made somehow in the future.  Silly.  Very absurdly silly, in fact, so I'll just assume we've misunderstood you.

Either way, I say back up your disks in the form of disk images on modern PC hardware, keep it up to date, and if you have the room, save the actual disks and boxes as well.

[Moondog]

Each is the product of the unique set of circumstances that led to its creation, from what the author ate for breakfast that day, to the cultural fads of the time, to the programming language and operating system used, etc.

A prime example is the games that came from Activision for the Atari 2600.  The writers had only 2k to work with at the time, but if you compared their games with the offerings Atari and the other third party shops put out, the graphics and gameplay on the Activision games made it feel like you're playing on a different platform.