On Mon, Oct 30, 2017 at 2:32 PM, Brian Berg <brianberg@gmail.com> wrote:
A very sad story here: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/business/7559762-181/hewlett-p ackard-archives-at-keysight-destroyed
Chuck House responded to me re: this sad news with:
*Sad on many fronts*
*1. Ironic, since HP was almost alone in Silicon Valley for hiring a curator thirty years ago to preserve its history*
*2. Ironic, that the curator (and subsequent ones) would not let historians or others have access to this tremendous history*
*3. Ironic, that HP is one of the digital electronics pioneers which offered a way to digitize this collection at any point in the last twenty years*
*4. Ironic, that a company so big, with such history, would have no sense of the value of what had been accumulated*
*5. Ironic, that the Computer History Museum here in town, never tried to get this archive*
*Great lessons here*
I knew that Chuck had been involved with helping to scan and archive Cisco's history. When I pinged him about that, he wrote me re: his small treatise on this topic: *Preserving our Digital Revolution Heritage: If not you, who? If not now, when? <http://www.lulu.com/us/en/shop/charles-house/digital-revolution-heritage/paperback/product-22378873.html>*
_________________________ Brian A. Berg / bberg@StanfordAlumni.org Berg Software Design 14500 Big Basin Way, Suite F, Saratoga, CA 95070 USA Voice: 408.741.5010 <(408)%20741-5010> / Cell: 408.568.2505 <(408)%20568-2505> Consulting: Flash Memory/USB/Storage/Patents visit the Storage Cornucopia: www.bswd.com FMS Technical Chair: www.FlashMemorySummit.com IEEE Milestone <http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:List_of_IEEE_Milestones> Coordinator for Region 6 <http://www.ieee-region6.org/> IEEE SCV Section <http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r6/scv/> Past Chair / IEEE-CNSV <http://www.CaliforniaConsultants.org> Board Director IEEE Silicon Valley Tech History Committee <http://www.SiliconValleyHistory.com/> Chair
_______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/ listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org
I recall my interactions with the HP Archivist a few years ago, when I was looking for some historical content. I was told it would never be released because it 'represented HP's intellectual property'. This was related to products they haven't sold in 40 years, and I offered an NDA. A sad and strange attitude, if you ask me. -- Ian -- Ian S. King, MSIS, MSCS, Ph.D. Candidate The Information School <http://ischool.uw.edu> Dissertation: "Why the Conversation Mattered: Constructing a Sociotechnical Narrative Through a Design Lens Principal Investigator, "Reflections on Early Computing and Social Change", UW IRB #42619 Archivist, Voices From the Rwanda Tribunal <http://tribunalvoices.org> Value Sensitive Design Research Lab <http://vsdesign.org> University of Washington There is an old Vulcan saying: "Only Nixon could go to China."