Fortunately there seems to be more and more people collecting the computers now so there is more of a chance of the technology surviving. My collections will stay safe till I die at least but after that.... well who knows.
scuzz
http://www.commodore-amiga-retro.com
Scuzz,
I appreciate what you are trying to say and I think its great but you are also an example of one of the issues that I see. Your collection could be awesome but its a private collection. I'm not saying that you wouldn't be kind enough if somebody was doing some sort of research that you would help them out but your archive is invisible to researchers.
Please, don't think that I'm saying anything negative but as you stated who maintains your collection after you're gone?
I wanted to share another example with all of you. I was writing a paper linking fear, computers (technology) and nuclear war in the 1980s. I wanted some articles from some big name magazines from the time: Creative Computing, Compute!, Byte, etc...
I emailed the head of the university library where I worked for help. You know what? I couldn't find any of the articles through easy to use regular channels anymore. I had to jump through a whole bunch of hoops but when I asked why the librarian mentioned a new term to me: Extinction through popularity. These magazines had been so popular, so large, that many libraries just threw them out thinking others will carry them because they are were popular. Well, it turned out none of them kept them.
I mean I understand why from a current technology point of view but if you wanted to look back it became problematic.
So, anyway, there is my rant... :-)
Cheers!
-P
