While preparing for one of my retrocomputing streams for Reclaim TV I was searching for some of the major differences between Windows 95 and Windows 98. One of the first hits I got in Google was an archived help document from Indiana University:
Archived Indiana University Website discussing the difference between Windows 95 and Windows 98
It was a quite useful document for providing a point-by-point breakdown of the difference during my stream. It also had the added advantage of being in the moment, so it was addressing an audience that was preparing for the various changes in 1998 or 1999, helping to capture the ways in which Windows 98 was designed to make it easier for tens of millions more people to get online. Between 1996 and 1999 the amount of people online went from 45 to 150 million, and by 2000 it was 400 million.* Most of those folks would be using the Windows 98 Second Edition—which packaged so many of the necessary drivers for plug and play peripherals like ethernet cards right into the OS, making it that much easier for folks to get online. At the same time, this also meant packaging Internet Explorer 4 and 5 as the default browser for this OS which led to an antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft.
Anyway, I digress. The point I’m trying to make is how refreshing it is to see Indiana University take the time and resources to preserve something as ostensibly disposable as IT documentation. The archaeology of knowledge on the web over the last 25 years is dominated by the gravitational darkness of broken link errors created by individuals and organizations that fail to understand, or care about, the cultural importance a link might represent. I understand it is easy to go Catholic here and argue every sperm is sacred, which can be dangerous ground for all kinds of reasons.
So let’s look at it from another perspective, the way so many organizations deal with their own web history and archive is akin to clear cutting forests, leaving nothing behind for folks to understand the ecosystem that once was—not to mention the damage to the health of the existing environment over all. Beyond the AI pollution, without the Internet Archive† we would have such an immense web amnesia that we would arguably be living in a present devoid of huge swaths of the cultural content that has helped define our world view for more than two decades. Collectively we owe an enormous debt to the Internet Archive for all the great work they’ve done to preserve our pasts, but depending on endless good will after their coming under continual attack for simply trying to carry out their mission seems dicey at best. It’s high time every organization, and dare I say individual, take ownership of their online presence and make deliberate and responsible decisions about what stays and goes. But even writing that last sentence I am not sure it would solve the issue or be nearly enough, so maybe a third party crawler like the Wayback Machine is the best solution, but what happens if and when that is undermined by those who would have us forget?
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*Stats taken from this Elon University History of the Internet article “Imagining the Internet’s Quick Look at the Early History of the Internet.”
†It is telling that the easiest and most reliable place to get a copy of Windows 98 Second Edition to do this kind of research is the Internet Archive, they are truly amazing, but it does beg the question if they can continue to do it all alone.