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Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 33, No. 299.
Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
Hosted by King's Digital Lab
www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
[1] From: William Pascoe
Subject: Dockers for Archiving software (58)
[2] From: William Pascoe
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 33.295: in need of digitising: Indie Rock collection (105)
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2019-10-04 06:33:17+00:00
From: William Pascoe
Subject: Dockers for Archiving software
Hi Humanists,
In 2017 Willard put out a call for anyone who could get the content off an old
CD from the back of a book that depended on redundant OS and software (old
Flash) to run. While some video files could be extracted, the bulk of content in
the old proprietary software was not accessible. The only hope at the time was a
specialist lab that kept a few of those old machines and environments running.
Just recently we've been looking at running some web systems using Dockers.
Dockers let you encapsulate an operating system and run your software on it, and
then to run the whole thing within your computer, or on a server, or send it to
someone else to run. So it occurs to me - why not figure out how to put that old
operating system in a Docker, find the old flash installer and install it, and
put this old CD on it? I see someone has made an Docker for Windows 95
https://hub.docker.com/r/toolboc/windows95/, and also that you can get what I
think is the right version of Flash (Flash Player 7)
https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/archived-flash-player-
versions.html#Flash%20Player%20archives so it seems feasible, if you know
someone with a computer that has a CD drive.
So, firstly - there's a much belated suggestion for you Prof McCarty.
Secondly, I might be a bit late to the party or not have understood things
rightly but is anyone considering using Dockers to resurrect vintage software
and make re-usable archives of it? It seems it might be cost effective and make
things previously difficult or impossible to access easy to store and
distribute. Seems important since so much is already no longer supported, and
those old machines, and things like CD drives won't last very long - archivists
have a small window of opportunity at the moment to save things from the 80s and
90s.
BTW, the book was People of the Rivermouth: The Jaborr Texts of Frank
Gurrmanamana (2002) and Willard was interested in some traditional algorithms
for figuring out family relationships. You can find in the Humanist archives
here: https://dhhumanist.org/Archives/Current/Humanist.vol31.txt (Willard says
Mac Classic, but I have the book on order and it's from 2002, so I don't think
it actually is a Mac Classic that's needed. Those one's had the little square
floppy drives. Maybe thinking of the iMac G3.)
Kind regards,
Dr Bill Pascoe
System Architect
Time Layered Cultural Map Of Australia
C21CH Digital Humanities Lab
c21ch.newcastle.edu.au
T: 0435 374 677
E: bill.pascoe@newcastle.edu.au
The University of Newcastle (UON)
University Drive
Callaghan NSW 2308
Australia
The University of Newcastle is in the lands of Awabakal, Worimi, Wonaruah,
Biripi and Darkinjung people.
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2019-10-04 05:32:20+00:00
From: William Pascoe
Subject: Re: [Humanist] 33.295: in need of digitising: Indie Rock collection
What about an Indie Archive?
I hope an institution can see the value of this and how important it is to many
people. As a 90s child I know plenty of people in Australia who'd drool over
something like this. But we can't twiddle our thumbs waiting for institutions to
wake up, so what about an Indie Archive?
It's not hard to get an old tape deck/turntable/cd player with an audio out, and
buy a cheap audio input adapter for a computer, and just record them with free
software like audacity.
It's also not hard to come by online storage and to build a website around it.
You might even be able to upload them all to Soundcloud or similar (except for
maybe the licensing police cracking down.) Main thing would be to get them
stored online and backed up offline, and just remove from public view (without
deleting them, as they need to be kept due to historical significance until out
of copyright) those that get a take down order.
So the problem isn't the tech, it's the human effort. With 10,000 recordings, if
they are on standard 90 minute cassettes, that's 15,000 hours of recording. Each
tape needs to be put in and flipped once, waiting 45 mins each side, and the
recording started and stopped, uploaded and metadata'ed (though all that can
happen while waiting for the tape to play through). If you had 1000 people,
doing 15 hours each, it could work, or 500 doing a few days each, on multiple
set ups.
Are there 1000 fans of 90s indie in Chicago? Could be a pretty cool hang out on
weekends. Even if there aren't just start doing it - from little things big
things grow.
There may be some relatively minor costs, like buying some of the old gear, and
paying for sufficient hosting, and a bit of web dev for the upload and archive
interface, and someone to mind the volunteers don't pocket the tapes, and make
sure everyone's got the right recording settings, but surely some of those bands
from back in the day are now rich enough to pony up?
Then put the tapes in a climate controlled library basement.
Kind regards,
Dr Bill Pascoe
System Architect
Time Layered Cultural Map Of Australia
C21CH Digital Humanities Lab
c21ch.newcastle.edu.au
T: 0435 374 677
E: bill.pascoe@newcastle.edu.au
The University of Newcastle (UON)
University Drive
Callaghan NSW 2308
Australia
The University of Newcastle is in the lands of Awabakal, Worimi, Wonaruah,
Biripi and Darkinjung people.
________________________________
From: Humanist
Sent: Friday, 4 October 2019 2:56 PM
To: publish-liv@humanist.kdl.kcl.ac.uk
Subject: [Humanist] 33.295: in need of digitising: Indie Rock collection
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 33, No. 295.
Department of Digital Humanities, King's College London
Hosted by King's Digital Lab
www.dhhumanist.org
Submit to: humanist@dhhumanist.org
Date: 2019-10-03 22:45:40+00:00
From: Sean Yeager
Subject: "Chicago's Hidden Indie Rock Archive"
Hello everyone,
I recently read this article about Aadam Jacobs, who documented Chicago's
indie rock scene for three decades. Link:
https://interactive.wbez.org/curiouscity/taping-guy/
It's a fascinating read, but Jacobs's analogue collection is at risk of
disappearing. Posting the story here in the hope of catching a digital
archivist's interest. From the article:
"At this point, Jacobs says he's had trouble finding the right institution
that can digitize, catalog and preserve the recordings, some of which are
on old, disintegrating cassette tapes... He wants it to be the right
place... He has something that nobody else has, Miller Tweedy says. I
think about it and wonder what's going to happen to it. And, yeah, it
could be disintegrating, so I hope he finds a way to get it all further
archived so that it stays forever. It's really priceless."
Best,
Sean
---
Sean A. Yeager, M.Sc., M.A.
Ph.D. Candidate in English
The Ohio State University
Former Assistant Professor of Physics and Mathematics
Pacific Northwest College of Art
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