←back to thread

128 points rbanffy | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
Show context
notorandit ◴[] No.45858442[source]
I have mixed feelings.

On one side I think we need to preserve this relic as we did with Homer's poetry. Because it just deserves.

On another side I think we won't (and should not) try to preserve in an infinite present whatever has been written by humanity. For what purpose?

replies(7): >>45858531 #>>45858632 #>>45858759 #>>45858901 #>>45859180 #>>45859522 #>>45860175 #
1. observationist ◴[] No.45858901[source]
Understanding, and inspiration. They had to create under serious constraints in compute, memory, and storage, and understanding how and why they did can lead to ideas about how to optimize software on modern machines.

It's also critical for understanding how and why the engineering choices were made when documenting the evolution of processing. Instruction sets, processor design, programming languages, computer culture, corporate trends, all of those things have roots in design decisions, and the software preserved on tapes like this are a sort of DNA.

The effort needed to incorporate the information is dropping, with AI you can run analysis and grab important principles and so on, and whatever principles govern optimization and performance under constraints will be useful on a permanent basis.