Submission Rules
In a nutshell, the focus is on materials for computer hardware, software and OS products that are out of production and at least 15 years old. I will not be overly concerned should items not meeting these guidelines slip through (especially if they are products of significance.)
I will also accept consumer electronics, photography and related as well as automotive brochures from all years. I just want to have some options if / when I run out of computer-related materials.
How to contribute printed materials
Feel free to contact me if you have printed materials you would like to send to me for inclusion. We can discuss shipping arrangement and whether you want the materials returned after scanning.
I have been placing labels or using liquid paper to cover personal information. If you want the materials returned, we will have to discuss how to handle this. There is a third option to edit the images after scanning but that takes a lot more time and reduces the quality of that page due to bring compressed, decompressed and then compressed again.
If you allow me to keep the materials, they will be added to my collection which will be donated to a computer library or museum at some point.
If your company has materials to contribute…
Feel free to contact me if you have materials from your company’s history included in The Computer Archive.
What I will NOT post
First, I cannot accept images from other web sites unless they are provided by the owner of the site. Second, I want to avoid extremely low-quality scans or thumbnail images as I want to maintain a certain quality standard. 200 dpi is my minimum resolution goal unless circumstance dictate otherwise. While there might be a day that post manuals or other documentation, I will absolutely refuse to post any software, key codes or serial numbers.
Removing materials
See Removing Materials. Should your company or organization wish to have your materials removed for any reason, all you need to do is contact us from the Removing Materials page. Although I will be disappointed, I will respect your request and attend to it promptly.
Other related web site archives
If you have or know of another web site that covers computer history, let me know and I’ll see about adding it to the related links page.
Publishing Format
The goal is to only post materials in PDF format, preferably text-searchable and scanned at 200 dpi or 300 dpi resolution, color or grayscale as appropriate. If only lower-quality originals are available, I’ll work with them the best I can. Remember that photocopied literature and dot-matrix printed literature was not uncommon in the early days.
