Preservation - Software and Hardware

Preservation means to be able to view, access or use something as it were in the past. It can be software, hardware, or digital content (this last one can be categorized as software, even it doesn't have instruction sets to be executed). Several users are working towards the goal of making this possible, for several fields of interest. Restoration can be also involved, depending if it uses original replacement parts and fixing methods.

• PROTOWEB: aims to offer online viewing for websites as they were in it’s early days, using different proxies and ports. They aim to reproduce not only static content, but also search engines, online games, radio podcasts, online weather forecast, etc. even mixed with current content. They can reproduce also T1 and 56kbps connection speeds.
• Internet Archive: is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.

Videos:

• Protoweb - Reviving the '90s Internet! (Overview & Demo)
• Giant FAQ on The European Initiative to Stop Destroying Games!

 

ROADBLOCKS TO PRESERVATION

1. Eagerness: as new content is readily available, almost 100% of the time and resources of people, are focused towards viewing it or using it, instead of first saving it and then using it.
   
2. Asymmetric difficulty: it's much more difficult for a user to save the programs or data, than is for the publisher or creator to make it or distribute it. So if uploading a video to YouTube takes 20 minutes, downloading it and having enough space will takes orders of magnitude that time, specially for content behind restrictions: paywall, registration required, geo-blocking, expiration dates. Additional equipment, resources, time and expertise is required way beyond reasonable.
3. Limited backup capabilities by design: iOS / Android do not allow a 1:1 "full backup" or "disk image backup". Without rooting devices is not possible to officially perform full backups or restores of almost any device.

Only private individuals and non-profit entities can preserve in the long term. It's not possible otherwise and will never be.