Preserving the History
The purpose of this site is to help preserve the history of the companies and products that advanced the computer revolution.
The focus is to share literature for ‘vintage’ computer hardware, software and OS products that are well out of production and at least 15 years old. At least initially, the bulk of the material will center on the microcomputer revolution from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s.
As for format, the goal is to keep the quality standard reasonably high, posting materials in a text-searchable PDF format scanned at 200 dpi and sometimes 300 dpi. PDFs yield tremendous versatility in viewing and printing and while the resolution and compression rate balances quality versus size.
(Bear in mind that photocopied and dot-matrix printed literature were common in the earlier days.)
It is a lot of fun to see how far and fast this industry has progressed. As you browse the archive, watch hard drives grow in capacity and shrink in size, how memory has expanded the software growing to fill it. Look for innovative technologies that are no longer necessary and technologies that came, went and are nearly forgotten.
Catalogs and Literature Only
Here are the guidelines as they presently stand:
- At this stage, only stand-alone product literature and catalogs are being posted. Literature refers to materials that was printed by the manufacturer and are preferred because they generally contain much more information than a typical magazine display ad.
- I will accept advertisements scanned from periodicals but I will not post them until either the publisher or copyright holder have given permission to share the ads from their publication(s) or a copyright attorney has given me the go-ahead.
- Whole magazines and other publications will not be posted without the express consent of the publisher or copyright holder.
- This site is not intended to be a outlet for photographs, ROMs or other firmware, software, scripts, owners manuals or service manuals unless provided by or by the consent of the publisher or copyright holder.
- Companies or copyright holders may contribute materials to the archive outside of these guidelines. Interested parties wishing to use The Computer Archive to help preserve their history should contact us to discuss goals and expectations.
Organization
Click “Enter the Archive” to the left to access the materials which are simply stored as individual PDF files in separate folders grouped by category.
The “blog” portion is simply to highlight what are interesting materials and make visitors aware of news and when new materials are posted.
There is no way I could meaningfully cover every item in the archive. That would get long and tedious for everything. Therefore you are encouraged to browse the archive and take either that trip down memory lane or to see the foundation of the personal computer era.
Future
Right now, I’m just using a modified directory browser to view the archive. As this grows, I’ll probably put together something better and easier to navigate, hopefully with a search function.
About Me
My name is Dan and I am fortunate to have been a part of the microcomputer revolution since the 1970s. I go by the handle of Thumper, a nickname acquired after a good bull ride at a rodeo in Colorado. Today, I still develop software and enjoy working with user-interfaces and writing good, tight programs like what was required in the early days of the PC.
This web site was started as a pet project (no Commodore 2001 pun intended) to make my personal archive of literature available to everyone. I invite you to browse the archive and hope you enjoy your time here.
