[vcf-midatlantic] Culpability and Provenance

[David Gesswein]

I remove anything I see from what I put online that I wouldn't want online
if I had written it. Much easier on old machines where the media didn't have
much capacity and less personal work was done on them.

For older machines a reasonable amount of software is recovered by reading
random old media.

Some of it gives much better feel for how they were used and what use was 
like in certain enviornments. For example I found this quite interesting. It
has some personal info but after 47 years don't think some names and phone
numbers is too big a deal.

http://www.pdp8online.com/pdp8cgi/os8_html/SYSTEM.TS?act=file;fn=images/jby/jby5_8.rk05;blk=248,65,0;to=auto

Since I have imaged the media I put what I want on for demos since I can
always put the original back if of interest.

On Thu, Jan 14, 2021 at 11:14:25PM -0500, Dave McGuire via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> On 1/14/21 9:54 PM, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> > First of all, I believe (my belief) that one should try to leave a vintage
> > computer as-is if possible, to preserve it's providence.
> 
>   That really depends on what you're trying to achieve.  Over at LSSM, our
> philosophy is a bit different: our focus is on the computers, the technology
> used to build them, and the software used to run them.  They are tools.
> 
>   The work that Joe Shmoe did on this or that specific machine is irrelevant
> to all of that.  It may serve as an example of the sort of work that one
> might use such tools to perform, but that's about it. More often than not,
> it's just in the way.
> 
>   If it were a museum of a different type of tool, say, wrenches, we likely
> wouldn't care about what (say) car engine this or that specific wrench was,
> at one point in its service life, used to work on.  We might have an engine
> in the museum with the wrenched posed on it, as an example of the tool being
> used to perform work, but expending effort to display the same engine (not
> the same kind, but the same ONE) that Joe Shmoe worked on with that wrench
> in 1962 brings little value to the exhibit or the point it's trying to make
> to the viewer...because it's about the tool.
> 
>   If the focus is on the preservation of work performed with the computer,
> sure, I can see that.  But is that a common focus in efforts like ours?  I
> doubt it.  I'd have no problem with it if it were so, but still, I doubt it.
> 
>   Just my USD$0.02.
> 
>             -Dave
> 
> -- 
> Dave McGuire, AK4HZ
> New Kensington, PA