On 1/15/21 11:24 AM, Jeff Salzman via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
So is the mere discovery that a computer was somewhere at some particular moment in time based on what is contained within it always an illegal action? Unless you stole the computer, I seriously doubt it. Did the Univac in the museum come with any programs or data on paper tape? If so, by some opinions here, that should all have been destroyed before we started working with the unit... and on the same note, if people visiting the museum ask where we got it from, should we just tell them that it's not important? It's just a tool, right, with no other significance regarding its history.
Well, that depends entirely on the system we're talking about. THAT system, yes, "Where and how was THIS ONE used" I'd imagine is a pretty common question. That's an extremely rare system; I'd be surprised if there were even ONE more of them out there in the world. But what about the Kaypro II? I alone have nearly a dozen of those. One of them was used by a public high school history teacher to prepare course material. I know this because I looked at the disks before I erased them. Did I erase them because I was being overly paranoid about someone else's old high school data from 1986? No. I erased them because the data was useless and uninteresting, and I needed some blank disks. But if paper tape were erasable, would I erase the paper tapes that came with the Univac, even if it were "just" old data? Very likely not. My point? It's a judgment call, and not even a particularly difficult one. Experience is what gives us the tools to make these judgment calls, and people like us do it all the time. I'm willing to bet that nothing major has been lost due to our activities, and I'm also willing to bet that nobody got hauled off by the cops because they got caught thumbing through Mrs. Scheleka's public high school history tests from the middle of Wisconsin in 1986. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA