Compuserve wayback machine

[James B. DiGriz]

Jules Richardson wrote:
> Ethan Dicks wrote:
>> On 1/10/07, Jim Leonard <trixter at oldskool.org> wrote:
>>> For anyone who's gotten in:  Are the old file archives still there and
>>> intact?  There's a lot of stuff there that never made its way onto BBSes
>>> and the 'net...
>>
>> I would be surprised to hear that anyone runs across any content - I
>> went looking for it with my work PPN in 2000 and couldn't find
>> diddly-squat.  I was told that all the "old stuff" had been taken off
>> some time before.
> 
> That's interesting - if they've gone to the extent of retaining old 
> logins it would suggest that they're expecting to entice a few original 
> customers back based on nostalgia; for that reason you'd think they'd 
> keep the content that those customers were used to available too (anyone 
> know what sort of total size the "old stuff" would amount to? Presumably 
> we're not talking that much in modern terms...)
> 
> cheers
> 
> Jules
> 

A lot of stuff definitely was taken offline. Just not all at once.

I remember around '87-88 or so I dl'd the entire OSI library because it 
was scheduled to be taken offline. Disk space I believe was the reason 
given. And it was removed.

The TI sig. at least the file libraries, is archived at ftp.whtech.com. 
When it was folded into the Orphan Computer sig, some of it (messages, 
mostly, I *think*) was taken offline. Again disk usage was the reason 
given, as I recall.

I'm sure some other forums have been preserved in different places, too. 
That's about the best that  could be hoped for unless Compuserve has 
archive tapes and could put the material back online. Some of it is 
proprietary, though.  I'd like to get the Pecan Software libraries for 
the P-system stuff, for instance, but I don't know if they're even still 
in business, and I'm not sure if I remember correctly how the licensing 
went for the 3rd-party forums CIS hosted.

I imagine CIS has some right to put at least the user contributed stuff 
back up, but maybe just not enough interest has been expreesed. The 
legal department, would probably want authorization from the forum owner 
regardless, probably.

jbdigriz