[ih] Saving your relics

[Alex McKenzie]

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.

Cheers,
Alex McKenzie
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