
Carnegie Mellon Is Saving Old Software from Oblivion - sremani
https://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/software/carnegie-mellon-is-saving-old-software-from-oblivion
======
gnat
"Think of it as a Wayback Machine for executable content." Internet Archive
already doing some of this.
[https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary](https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary)
Jason Scott pushed hard for JSMESS, the in-browser emulator that brings the
archived software to life.
[https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php/Javascript_Mess](https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php/Javascript_Mess)

This is one of a few similar projects. The government Archives offices of most
countries have to not just preserve digital records but also the software
necessary to read them. Mick Crouch is the legend in New Zealand who does a
pile of this work: [https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/346630/outdated-
tech...](https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/346630/outdated-tech-trove-
keeps-digital-archives-alive)

~~~
unixhero
I find it it pretty ignorant for a publication as venerable as IEEE to miss
the fact that archive.org already has this.

~~~
Jaruzel
Near the end of the article it does say:

 _We are not alone in our quest to keep old software alive. For example, the
Internet Archive is preserving thousands of old programs using an emulation of
MS-DOS that runs in the user’s browser..._

And also then goes on to refer to other Living Software Preservation
initiatives.

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3rdAccount
I find this especially relevant. Recently I found an old textbook that was
amazing. Lots of great detail on nearly impossible to find subjects.

I emailed the professor (now near retirement) for the answers to the solutions
as I'm no longer a student and the book has been out of print since before I
was born. He told me he didn't have it anymore as it was on an old computer on
an operating system that doesn't exist anymore.

All the code, example answers lost to time.

It made me wonder just how common this phenomena is.

~~~
thaumasiotes
Compare
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18036255](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18036255),
where right now people are slamming the OP for posting solutions to Coursera
exercises.

If the goal is education, the solutions should be published too.

~~~
3rdAccount
Agreed. If there are 100 problems in a book and I work all 100, how am I to
know if I did it right? If I get one wrong (which I assuredly will), how am I
to see what I did wrong?

Some teachers are awful too and the only way to learn is to get your hands on
a solutions manual and reverse engineer your understanding. It can be a very
frustrating experience.

------
whatever1
Reproducibility is a huge issue in academia and in the software engineering
world.

As an anecdote, we were trying to reproduce results for a c++ algorithm for
which we had the source code, on the same machine, same compiler, only 2 years
after its original creation. Impossible. Our best guess is that some os/hw
patch / firmware update had an impact on the random number generation, but we
never managed to figure out what exactly caused the discrepancies that we were
observing.

~~~
org3432
The way some video game studios do this is simply put a whole computer into
the archive with all the software on it, so all the hardware and software are
captured in time.

~~~
adrianN
What's the expected lifetime of a computer in storage? I'd think that bitrot
sets in fairly quickly on storage medium.

~~~
sli
That's data rot or disc rot. Bit rot is also known as software rot.

------
saagarjha
> For now, though, Olive is available only to a limited group of users.
> Because of software-licensing restrictions, Olive’s collection of vintage
> software is currently accessible only to people who have been collaborating
> on the project. The relevant companies will need to give permissions to
> present Olive’s re-creations to broader audiences.

What do you do when the original company no longer exists?

~~~
jlawson
Depends on what the EULA for the product said and what happened to the
company.

Companies of any value tend not to just disappear; they get bought by other
companies who thus inherit their IP rights.

Sometimes after a while it can be hard to determine who owns a piece of IP.
This can happen with old video games, for example, since the studios and
publishers have split and merged so much over the years. At times it's a
matter of interpretation who owns a property, and it can end up in court.

TLDR there's almost always someone ready to take your money; not always easy
determining who it should be.

~~~
bitwize
> Depends on what the EULA for the product said and what happened to the
> company.

The EULA to dBASE III stated that the grant of license lasted for fifty years.
If, after fifty years, you were still using dBASE III, you would no longer be
using it legally and had to return your copy to Ashton-Tate.

All you dBASE III users out there -- you've got maybe 15-20 years left!

------
org3432
Reminds me, if you haven't been to Paul Alan's Living Computer museum I'd
highly recommend it. You can play chess against a real working PDP-8 which is
pretty impressive.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHU4nzIsaIM&t=5m38s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHU4nzIsaIM&t=5m38s)

~~~
emmelaich
I was wondering how they get the funds for such an expensive operation and I
realised you mean Paul _Allen_

The Paul Allen who is the co-found of Microsoft and one of the richest people
in the world.

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nudpiedo
I want to know how that will be done with cloud applications when the
companies never have published their cloud/online software.

------
prawn
Years ago, an online acquaintance undertook something with similar intent,
collecting old web browsers:
[https://browsers.evolt.org/](https://browsers.evolt.org/)

~~~
lsh
One of the oldest versions of Opera (in the archive) from 1999 (765.31 KB):
[https://browsers.evolt.org/browsers/archive/opera/win/212/](https://browsers.evolt.org/browsers/archive/opera/win/212/)

~~~
rasz
Opera 2.xx was ~1996

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agumonkey
similarly: [https://www.inria.fr/en/news/news-from-inria/launching-of-
so...](https://www.inria.fr/en/news/news-from-inria/launching-of-software-
heritage)

[https://www.softwareheritage.org/](https://www.softwareheritage.org/)

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peter303
I thought the federal government did that via 20th century COBOL software few
understand.

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LordKano
I need to pay a visit to the CMU campus to see if I can see their work.

