[cap-talk] Hosting of digital computer history data

[Jed Donnelley]

cap-conf, cap-talk,

Does anybody know of any institution that has taken
on the role of storing/hosting/displaying digital
data about computer history - esp. on the Web?

When I think about how little data this is relative
to monumental efforts like the Internet Archive:

http://www.archive.org/

it seems to me that there should be some organization
in this space working contributions, institutional
support, etc. to play the hosting role.

I know of sites like:

http://www.multicians.org/

or perhaps:

http://www.computer-history.info/
(which I've been involved with)

that both seem to be hosted with mainly
individual involvement (in the former
case Tom Van Vleck and in the later
case Tom Deboni (I guess the Tom's have
it ;-).

I'm sure there are others.  This situation
seems rather precarious to me.  Is there
a better way that I'm just so far unaware
of?  It surprises me that the Computer
History Museum hasn't stepped into this
role - unless I missed it.

I'm concerned about the long term hosting
for any historical data that we collect
about capability systems and histories.

Anybody have any thoughts?

--Jed  http://www.webstart.com/jed-signature.html