Do you guys ever use the Internet Archive for anything? I agree that they’re doing a great job archiving things, but realistically, through time most of things which happened have been forgotten.
I use the Wikipedia like once a week to look something up, but I only ever used the Internet Archive to look at a early version of my own website. But never for anything else. But perhaps I’m missing out on something?
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It’s a trove of primary source material for historians. Even presuming you don’t personally use it yourself it’s a crucial archive of human history that all will benefit from
Yeah, I used it extensively for researching for college papers. They had full newspapers from 100 years ago that I could find the exact advertisement for a concert of a little known composer. Plus there were all sorts of obscure books and old movies that were fantastic to track down. I was able to write a paper in a couple of days that would have taken months of inner library loans otherwise.
Yea, without an archive the internet is probably the least permanent form of media we’ve invented so far
I use it to find old software and games for my retro PC projects, currently working on a Windows XP gaming machine and maybe a DOS machine afterwards.
Without the Internet Archive it would have been a lot harder to find software.
And I love the wayback machine for looking up old websites.
Wayback machine very often. I also like to watch The Computer Chronicles which is on IA. I can also get old installation ISOs from there.
reading defunct webcomics
All the time. For websites that are no longer online, it’s invaluable, what’s the alternative?
Things which happened get forgotten because they’re deleted. If something like Internet Archive exists that’s no longer a problem.
I just bought and restored some older but well-built deck furniture. Each piece had a badge on it with a company name and URL, but the site is long gone. Popped it into the wayback machine and instantly learned all about the furniture, its maker, and how much it cost back in the day, which was really neat.
roms. endless roms.
Wayback Machine, all the time. Very useful if a reference link on Wikipedia is dead (why do websites just remove articles like that? It drives me nuts). Unfortunately it doesn’t handle JavaScript very well, rendering some functions of websites unusable, or breaking images. I particularly remember browsing the website for Al Jazeera Children’s Channel (which is jcctv.net by the way), they had a theme switcher which unfortunately uses JS, so… I’m stuck with the blue underwater theme for some reason. And yes, Al Jazeera did do lots of non-news related stuff at one point.
The Internet Archive can be useful as well if you’re looking for a very niche thing that isn’t really available elsewhere. I usually use it for software, but at one point I tried searching it for an archive of Club Penguin’s game files. They also have lots of public domain stuff if you’re interested in that (friendly reminder: Steamboat Willie is part of it now).
I use the Wayback machine sometimes.
Norm MacDonald’s old youtube podcast is on there, while it’s hard to find anywhere else (they took it down from youtube when he got his Netflix show).
I’ve found public domain pictures on there, and I’ve spent time browsing very old music.
I went down a rabbithole of comparing evolving definitions of words by reading through generations of dictionaries. That would be hard to do without the IA. As well as comparing versions of books that I was considering buying.
I do - there are old sites that have gone off line that I search the Way Back Machine to look at. There are also lots of archived files available that I’ve used more than once (Amiga files for example, Usenet archives and even old magazines).
It’s not really a day-to-day tool for everyone, but when you need it it’s irreplaceable.
Sure. Every few weeks I absolutely need it. Most of the times it’s the wayback machine, looking up stuff that vanished from the internet. Or what’s been on my homepage two years ago. Or what a company offered last year to compare it to the current price. Occasionally I download some old DOS games, manuals, books or audio files.
And I sometimes use the wayback machine to bypass paywalls.
They’ve got a lot of old manuals scanned in, so I use it to reference those a lot.
Pretty much any book you want to read for free, you can borrow from them. I use it very frequently to grab sections of some book I’m interested in or want to cite but don’t have a physical copy of.
They also have awesome documentaries. The Mine Wars is, I think, one I saw not that long ago which was pretty sweet.
I do not donate to them for using all this awesome stuff, even though I probably should.
I use the wayback machine a lot. The actual archive less often, but I’ve definitely used it to look up things that are otherwise hard to find.
Yes often. I regularly work on fixing up old computers and electronics, often Archive is the place to go for old manuals and schematics. Old firmware and software is also on there.
It’s so much better for people to put stuff on the Archive instead of in a random forum post somewhere with a broken download link.
