Preserving the Artifacts of the Early Digital Era: A Study of What, Why and How?

Abstract

In this article, we report the pilot results of a survey study (N=1036) related to social attitudes towards the early digital heritage. On the basis of the answers, we consider what constitutes early digital artifacts (EDA) and outline how knowledge about them can be useful. We explore attitudes toward the historical and cultural importance of various EDAs and chart the surveyed requirements for their successful and sustainable preservation for current and future generations.

Full text

Preserving the Artifacts of the Early Digital Era:
A Study of What, Why and How?
Maciej Grzeszczuk1,2[0000−0002−9840−3398] and
Kinga Skorupska1[0000−0002−9005−0348]
1Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology
2The Foundation for the History of Home Computers
maciej.grzeszczuk@fhkd.pl
Abstract. In this article, we report the pilot results of a survey study
(N=1036) related to social attitudes towards the early digital heritage.
On the basis of the answers, we consider what constitutes early digital
artifacts (EDA) and outline how knowledge about them can be useful.
We explore attitudes toward the historical and cultural importance of
various EDAs and chart the surveyed requirements for their successful
and sustainable preservation for current and future generations.
Keywords: computing history ·retrocomputing ·magnetic media ·
early digital artifacts ·demoscene
1 Introduction
Visiting a museum, we may come across a receipt from a shoemaker from 100
years ago. At the time it was issued, it was a common thing of no special sig-
nificance. However, it escaped oblivion in the wars that swept through Europe
and dodged the landfill. On its own, this just makes it a lucky receipt. But jux-
taposed with other testimonies of that time, a photograph of the street where
the workshop was located, a letter by a resident who used the services of a local
craftsman, or even a distinctive shoe print in the hot asphalt of the street, it
gives us enough to attempt to recreate the unique historical context. These testi-
monies can be put together because the media containing them have survived to
be read and interpreted. Testimonies on paper, although seemingly fragile, can
now be recovered even from charred 2000-year-old scrolls [5]. Counterintuitively,
the recovery and preservation of content from more recent media also constitutes
a significant challenge. The gradual popularization of computers in the second
half of the 20th century created many new, previously unknown possibilities and
applications, but it came with new threats to the continuity of historical records.
Hidden in the shadow of this mainstream culture is a complex patchwork of ev-
eryday human activity, motivated by individual creativity, all in the context of
the prevailing socioeconomic circumstances of times and places. These stories
exist on unapproachable magnetic media, often unread for decades, home-built
hardware, notebooks filled with mnemonics and in the minds of people who drove
and witnessed this revolution, who are still alive today. This gives hope for the
arXiv:2312.06570v1 [cs.HC] 11 Dec 2023

2 M. Grzeszczuk and K. Skorupska
success of this last call for coordinated actions aimed at preserving the remain-
ing data from that time. In this article, we report the pilot results of a survey
study (N=1036) related to social attitudes toward the early digital heritage. We
explore views on the historical and cultural importance of various early digital
artifacts (EDA) and chart the surveyed requirements for their successful and
sustainable preservation for current and future generations.
2 Related Work
Historians work with objects to create a narrative that allows for their interpreta-
tion [10,4]. But since the 1970s these objects increasingly lost their physical form,
moving into the digital sphere with the rise of early computers. Thus, digital arti-
facts also become a research subject, whether in the context of computers [14,9],
software recovery [13,12] or early networking and human interactions [11,1]. A
great example of these complex computer-driven activities is the demoscene (or
"the scene"), a phenomenon that evolved from the crack intros3and swap meet-
ings [6] where people exchanged not only programs, but also knowledge [7], ideas,
and artistic creations [8], connecting enthusiasts despite the barriers imposed by
political systems or economic situation4[6]. As time has passed, it naturally in-
corporated retrocomputing - a fascination with outdated computer hardware and
software. While retrocomputing is also the subject of researchers’ attention [2],
it has sprouted communities that deal with the analysis, preservation, and popu-
larization of remnants of digital culture independently of the scientific world. In
2004, Marcin "Stryker" Wojciechowski started an initiative to collect unofficial
cassette releases of the software5, Chilean community preserves remnants of the
8-bit Atari era6and AtariOnline.pl7has slightly more than 2000 mixed origin
cassette releases in their archives. Sebastian "Seban" Igielski analyzes Atari tape
recorders for modifications of the transmission method8and publishes decoded
files, photos, and schematics along with an analysis of their operation back to
the community9. Such preservation efforts occur within the scene and among the
retrocomputing "nerds"; however, with this research, we examine the perceived
importance and purpose of early digital heritage preservation among the broader
community and the public.
3Crack into was a short program, added to be started before the game which copy
protection had been removed (cracked). It was a showcase of programming skills
mixed with a social interaction tool - short text scrolls carried various messages.
4Wasiak P., Szałankiewicz Ł., Lichnerowicz A.: "Polska demoscena jako wspólnota",
ISBN: 978-83-969945-0-9, https://kskpd.pl/album2023
5Homepage of Cas Archive can be found at: http://cas-archive.pigwa.net
6MUSEO DE CASETES ATARI: https://retrogames.cl/museoataricas.html
7Link to file library: https://www.atarionline.pl/v01/index.php?ct=katalog
8Such were widespread in countries where economic constraints did not allow having
a disk drive. Popular examples like Turbo 2000 KSO, Turbo Blizzard, or Atari Super
Turbo could effectively accelerate the tape recorder up to 8 times.
9The atari.area forum thread: http://www.atari.org.pl/forum/viewtopic.php?
id=12348. Cassettes repository: http://seban.pigwa.net/uicr0bee/

Preserving the Artifacts of the Early Digital Era 3
Poland
Western
Europe
Eastern
Europe
APAC
North
America
South
America
3
7
20
55
150
400
0
Survey Participants
Is the surveyed an active
user of historical computer?
Yes
No
Fig. 1. A world map showing the territorial scope of our survey. Salmon color means
no respondents from the country. The intensity of the blue indicates the number of
participants on a logarithmic scale (legend in the upper left corner). The pie charts
indicate share of active users of historical computers.
3 Methods
In March 2023, we conducted a survey on the importance of the remnants of the
early home computing era. We wanted honest and open expression, including
critical, drawing from the concepts of action research [3]. The first batch of 36
was pen and paper. It included a briefing to verify whether the survey was clear.
We then launched it online, gathering more than 500 responses in the first week,
for a total of 1036 responses in 3 months it was active. We prepared it in English,
Polish, and Spanish and were reaching out through direct messaging and social
media, including diverse hobby/professional groups, retrocomputing discussion
forums, Facebook, Reddit, and Discord groups. We encouraged to share it with
family, spouses, and friends regardless of the age or experience in computing.
4 Results and Discussion
4.1 Survey Demographics
10.9% of surveyed were female, 87.5% male, 1% did not disclose sex and 0.7%
indicated "other". 63% of the respondents were between 36 and 49, aged between
50 and 59 constituted 24.8%, in the age range of 27-35 there were 5.7% of the
participants, over 60 years of age were declared by 4.7%, people between 18 and
26 years of age constituted 1. 6% and we had 1 person under 18 years of age
(with parental consent). We have reached 49 countries and five continents (see
Figure 1). Of 1036 participants 595 were historical computer users.
4.2 What is an Artifact of the Early Digital Age?
We asked non-historical computer users to reorder a randomized list of remnants
of the digital era based on their importance. Almost unanimously, they placed the

4 M. Grzeszczuk and K. Skorupska
source code and design documents at the top (see Figure 2). With minor regional
differences, the podium also included original software, as well as music, graphics,
and other forms of artistic expression. Although we did not include equipment
on the list for this question so as not to distort the results with its material
value, the respondents drew attention to its importance in the comments.
Fig. 2. Cumulative importance scores for a given EDA type. The one selected as the
most important received a score of 8, the least important a score of 1.
4.3 Why to Preserve Artifacts of the Early Digital Age?
EDAs are believed to be records carrying a broader context than the history of
the systems it is represented in (247 respondents; see Table 1 for this and the
following annotations). They can help understand the evolution of technology
and HCI interaction (204) and be used to learn computing (179), as "historic
systems and software are hugely more illustrative than modern comparable sys-
tems, being restricted to a scope that is a lot easier to understand". Algorithms
and interaction paradigms popular in the past, but since lost to history, may have
their renaissance today (90). In the same vein, some problems and errors encoun-
tered in the past may serve as lessons, so they are not repeated today (47). The
benefits are not limited to early computing education, as experience in finding
creative solutions in resource-constrained environments can help create a better
code on modern platforms (130), as one "thinks about the impact of code quality
on infrastructure". One respondent eloquently puts it: "Understanding physical
computers, physical networks will help understand our virtual world. Virtual
worlds are beautiful, but they are still zeroes and ones, an assembly language,
cpu language, machine language, electricity, logic gates, transistors. Your beau-
tiful worlds you build in minecraft are still simply magnetic data somewhere on
a harddisk in a faraway data centre.". Another reason given is that early com-
puting allows for a more DIY element, as the tools are simpler and, thus, are
easier to modify – allowing enthusiasts to take full ownership and control of the
devices and software – unlike their modern, closed, equivalents.
Although there were skeptical voices about the sense of preserving EDAs (12
respondents) and the belief that they had no practical application (49), an even
larger group of 64 was convinced that artifacts can be used to inspire and educate
next generations. One of the youth is enthusiastically recalling an event during

Preserving the Artifacts of the Early Digital Era 5
Table 1. Responses for question "How can knowledge about historical computers and
software be useful to us today or in the future?", presented by region, for for users and
non-users of historical computers regardless of region, and also as a percentage of all
responses.
Responses by Region All Regions
Eastern Europe
w/o Poland
North America
Poland
Western Europe
South America
APAC
Users
Non-Users
All Responses
As historical records in broader context 14 23 151 37 9 13 137 110 27.1%
To explore history of technology 12 35 87 49 14 7 119 85 22.4%
To learn computing on simple models 14 22 77 56 10 0 125 54 19.6%
To create better code, efficient solutions 13 20 56 30 10 1 88 42 14.3%
To study old design, to remake old ideas 6 18 43 13 10 0 56 34 9.9%
To develop and inspire next generations 3 6 38 9 4 4 42 22 7.0%
To appreciate where we are now 4 11 18 20 5 1 35 24 6.5%
Nostalgia 3 4 41 9 0 0 24 33 6.2%
Fun, Hobby, Tinkering, Art 3 8 38 6 1 0 39 17 6.1%
To foresee future trends 3 11 27 9 4 2 28 28 6.1%
It has no use 2 4 31 7 1 4 30 19 5.4%
It is just a curiosity 1 2 38 6 1 0 18 30 5.3%
To learn from past mistakes 3 11 20 11 2 0 21 26 5.2%
To be able to recover civilisation 0 0 14 2 1 0 7 10 1.9%
Legacy system continuity 0 1 7 5 1 1 12 3 1.6%
All Responses 56 114 474 190 53 25 537 375 100%
which the atmosphere of a computer fair from the 1980s was recreated: "I like
old stories related to historical computers. I wish there [still] was a hacker with
a cassette [stand]. He had a very funny book. "Space", "Nice Maze", "Collecting
eggs and escaping from chickens"10. Therefore, it seems important to choose the
right presentation formula - the opportunity to see historical technology in action
was important to 78 respondents and is also supported in the literature[14].
4.4 How to Preserve Artifacts of the Early Digital Age?
Our respondents see that a "community" (57 responses, see Table 2 for this and
the following annotations) and "organized effort" (133) are required to preserve
EDA. Apart from that they mention educational actions (78) and campaigns
(66) to make people "understand that their artifacts could be significant now or
beyond their lifetime, and to ensure they’re passed to relatives or people/bodies
(museums etc), who care about their future.". This is valuable, but may be too
late, as "oral histories", "memories", and experienced "emotions" (13) may be
lost at that point11, just as documentation (58) about the artifacts kept. As
10 In the times of stalls selling pirated software in Eastern Europe, the purchasing
decision was made as a result of browsing through primitive, photocopied lists of
programs, where each title was described with a single sentence, such as: "You are
in a pyramid, collecting diamonds".
11 A perfect example is an interview with Robert Jaeger, author of Montezuma’s Re-
venge (see Figure 3). He mentions that the game that circulated in a seemingly more
complete form, with an animated intro and music, was the result of the leak. The
release version had been truncated for commercial reasons and looked like prelimi-
nary in comparison (hence it was commonly known as Preliminary Monty). The link
to the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgerqFv6tNo.

6 M. Grzeszczuk and K. Skorupska
one respondent insightfully states: "The issue with software and old computers
is that merely looking at an inert device is only experiencing a tenth of the
significance or context of this device as a whole. [...] As old operators die, new
ones will have to replace them"
Respondents think that we need to establish "libraries", where they can be
"preserved for eternity", but they note that "legislation is not up to date with
this" (24). One suggests that "software should become open-source the moment
it becomes abandonware. (...) A community will have much more capability to
preserve it rather than its creator who’s no longer interested in it.".
Apart from moving them from "rotting media" (252), working hardware and
emulators are also necessary (106). Some respondents mention the challenges of
having enough resources (64) and time (27) for the job, and also to check them
periodically (161). Still, preservation limited to physical spaces is risky, as the
"destruction of a computer museum at the beginning of the war in Ukraine"
shows. Online archives (106), "such as www.pouet.net, www.archive.org" are
promising, especially if they would facilitate a "coordinated effort to catalog
and digitally store software"12 with "appropriate metadata, similar to FAIR
principles" (https://www.go-fair.org/fair-principles/). Paper-based material also
needs to be digitized to be stored in the cloud (58). People should be allowed to
upload their materials to a public database with clear tags and descriptions – that
would allow them to also add and describe their own prototypes and creative
works, previously unavailable online. As one respondent notes, currently such
artifacts exist and are dispersed in diverse collections, but they are not cataloged,
sometimes no longer accessible. Finally, "the more people have access to these
artifacts, the more likely they’ll be preserved because there will be people saving
them to their devices.".
Fig. 3. Screenshots of multiple versions of the popular Atari XL/XE game Mon-
tezuma’s Revenge: (a) Loader with an ad of the pirate stand operating in DH Feniks,
Warsaw, Poland in late 1980s; (b) Modified version of the leaked demo game with sig-
nature of the cracker: "Seban" instead of "Pedro"; (c) The official release of the game.
12 The lack of a unified system used in practice is a problem for existing initiatives. Most
different versions of the same program in the atarionline.pl library are distinguished
only by a consecutive number, without any indication of their differences, not to
mention the potential stories associated with them.

Preserving the Artifacts of the Early Digital Era 7
Table 2. Responses for question "What would it take to successfully preserve these
digital artifacts?", presented by region, for for users and non-users of historical com-
puters regardless of region, and also as a percentage of all responses.
Responses by Region All Regions
Eastern Europe
w/o Poland
North America
Poland
Western Europe
South America
APAC
Users
Non-Users
All Responses
Digitizing and backing up physical media 8 33 153 50 5 3 161 91 29.7%
Regular use and maintenance 6 14 96 25 14 6 106 55 19.0%
Museums and institutions 4 7 85 28 5 4 59 74 15.7%
Controlled storage conditions 3 17 77 21 10 3 76 55 15.4%
Hardware, spare parts or emulators 7 16 36 42 5 0 72 34 12.5%
On-line archives and databases 6 17 52 26 2 3 65 41 12.5%
Demonstrations and engagement 3 4 53 9 5 4 55 23 9.2%
Raising public awareness of the topic 6 3 42 8 4 3 43 23 7.8%
Knowledge, skills and research 6 5 24 25 1 3 45 19 7.5%
Money and resources 7 14 14 19 7 3 46 18 7.5%
Digitizing or recreating documentation 1 12 29 13 1 2 44 14 6.8%
Building and engaging community 2 5 27 15 7 1 33 24 6.7%
Passion, drive and motivation 2 8 9 19 12 3 33 20 6.2%
Descriptions, metadata and cataloging 1 1 22 7 0 1 21 11 3.8%
Building collections 1 2 23 5 0 0 18 13 3.7%
Time 2 7 2 12 4 0 18 9 3.2%
Legislative changes 1 4 8 6 2 3 13 11 2.8%
It is already preserved 2 6 6 8 1 0 19 4 2.7%
Tools 1 8 2 9 0 2 19 3 2.6%
Gathering personal histories 0 3 8 1 0 1 7 6 1.5%
There is no need to do it 0 0 9 3 0 0 7 5 1.4%
All Respondents 40 100 446 185 55 23 510 339 100%
5 Conclusion and Future Work
Overall, a great majority of our respondents saw a reason to preserve early digital
artifacts, or EDAs (Table 1), mostly as historical and educational sources. Apart
from digital artifacts they considered important, such as source code, design docs,
original software and art forms (Figure 2) they mentioned the need to preserve
hardware. As for EDAs, the efforts ought to focus on digitizing, either for online
archives or cultural institutions (Table 2). The existence of huge online archival
initiatives may discourage people from backing up individual collections, as they
may feel those are already digitized. While this may be true for original editions
of mass-released titles, it is not so in the case of bootleg recordings or works
of art, potentially still in the hands of the community, waiting to be preserved.
It is the existence of the unregulated scene which is an important testament
to the ingenuity of people faced with economic inequality and scarcity. These
artifacts not only tell individual stories of creativity, but also help recreate the
rich socioeconomic context of the early computing era in different regions. This
context is ever incomplete, and it becomes harder to recreate as more artifacts
degrade and memories fade [2,13]. The preservation task is even more difficult as
it is often performed as uncoordinated, individual actions, without systemic and
legislative support – and the goal of our future work is to address these challenges.
We need artifacts standing testimony to the everyday reality of the past. The
ones that gave rise to the early HCI community; the people who produced code
written within the brutal constraints of early hardware we can use to educate
future generations [9]. Without this context, we cannot fully appreciate how far
we have come, what it took to arrive here, and what roads were not taken.

8 M. Grzeszczuk and K. Skorupska
Acknowledgments
The authors express their gratitude to all survey respondents for sharing their
personal views and experiences in this study. We also want to recognize the mas-
sive effort of the community of enthusiasts who tackle collection, maintenance,
and preservation tasks, often without much systemic or institutional support.
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