I’m currently reading a book called The Theory and Craft of Digital Preservation (Owens, T. 2018). While it doesn’t sound that exciting - I’m really enjoying it. I like how the author highlights some important things to consider using some really interesting examples.

  • Alexei Shulgin’s Form Art - aesthetic considerations, how web browsers display HTML changes over time, how important is the browser rendering? is the source code the art? The artwork can be seen here - http://www.c3.hu/collection/form/. It was originally made in 1997 so it would have looked a lot different then.

  • The Oregon Trail - the “Here lies andy; peperony and chease” epitaph that made its way into numerous bootleg copies of the game.

  • World of Warcraft - the challenges of archiving experience/internet based media, does archiving the source code of the game really capture its essence and cultural impact?

  • The archiving of Salmon Rushie’s laptops - providing valuable insight into the creative process. An article from The Atlantic provides some more detail - https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2010/04/snooping-through-salman-rushdies-computer/39260/.

After the mention of The Oregon Trail, I couldn’t resist giving it a quick blast -

Things didn't look too good

This is the 1991 version of the game running on an emulated Macintosh Plus (hardware emulation being another topic that the book touches on). This emulation is available in the browser - https://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/.