<html><body><div style="color:#000; background-color:#fff; font-family:times new roman, new york, times, serif;font-size:12pt"><div>In the most recent issue of the IEEE Annals of the History of Computing (Vol 33, No 2, April-June 2011) there is an article
by Patricia Galloway titled "Personal Computers, Microhistory, and
Shared Authority: Documenting the Inventor - Early Adopter Dialectic"
Her thesis is along the lines: you can't understand the technological
history of the beginning of personal computers without understanding how
much innovation was carried out by early users and the tight feedback
loop between inventors/vendors and inventors/users. And, you can't
trust the memories of these people without putting their old
hardware/software back into their hands and letting recollections be
stirred up. Then it makes the plea that those of us with old
hardware/software/notebooks/etc gathering dust in our basements make an
earnest effort to see that it is all preserved as a unit, from which
historians of technology can learn. So before you (or your spouses or
children) move those piles to the dumpster consider that you might
donate the collection to the Computer History Museum, the Charles Babbage Institute, or some similar organization.</div>
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Cheers,</div>
<div>Alex McKenzie<br></div></div></body></html>