Riding with the Bit Savers

Since 1997, a dedicated team of scanners and curators have been assembling a collection of historical computer and technology-related items. This collection, called BITSAVERS.ORG, contains tens of thousands of documents and software products dating back from the 1950s and into the 2000s. From the days of mainframes and electronic counting machines through the home computer revolution and the short lives and shorter support of various pieces of equipment, Bitsavers volunteers have been scanning industriously. There are piles of manuals and brochures, as well as guides and overviews, that have been cast aside in favor of the next big thing. Bitsavers has been working tirelessly to rescue these lost documents.

And now, they are mirrored on the Internet Archive.

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Currently, over 23,000 individual manuals, books, memos, and guides are hosted on the Archive in the collection, automatically ported over from the Bitsavers mirrors.

Every week, a dozen or more new documents join the Bitsavers archive, from all reaches of technological history. Whether you want to browse the original manual for the Apple I or learn the benefits of a Sanders Associates 5700 Tape System, there’s something for every person interested in seeing where computing has come from.

Some other gems in the collection:

Whether for research, nostalgia, or interesting inspiration for artwork and writing, the millions of scanned pages in the Bitsavers collection are a click away from the collection page. Where possible, further sub-collections for companies like IBM, DEC and Control Data Corporation are also available.

A toast to this flood of computer history!

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3 thoughts on “Riding with the Bit Savers

  1. Pingback: Bitcoin Bible and I | elcidharth

  2. Glenn

    Anyone know where, or if, I can get a copy of an old website, one from 1999 or 2000? Website still exists today, but has been changed and I am looking for version that existed then.

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