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Tag: retrocomputing

Floppy disks and modern gadgets: Keeping a safe distance

If you ever come across an old floppy disk, be careful how you hold it and what you place against it. We’ve found a number of cases where putting a smartphone or tablet against a floppy disk will erase the data stored inside.

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On putting old software out to pasture

Tomorrow marks an important milestone in the lifecycle of computer software, and should be a day of concern for perhaps hundreds of millions of computer users worldwide.  April 8, 2014 is the final day that Microsoft will provide extended support for its aging Windows XP operating system.  Although Microsoft has not been providing any new […]

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NY Times Article on the realities and costs of Born Digital preservation

The New York Times today published an article that reflects some of the challenges of preserving born digital content – that is, documents, data and other content that has been created digitally, on a computer or electronic device, and for which there is no physical original (such as on paper). In particular, they highlight the […]

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Retrocomputing: Remembering technologies past

Even as technology marches on, there is a slowly growing enthusiasm for looking back on the history of computing, and preserving those still-working specimens of obsolete systems and vintage hardware and software that exist. The movement is known as retrocomputing, and although it’s mostly done as a hobby, I would argue that the people who collect and […]

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