Time Machine?

By Ian Urie


I read an article in one of my favourite online reads, The Register, regarding a reprieve from the copyright protection law in America
The reprieve was for the Internet Archive.
This is a non profit making organisation which makes it its business trying to archive old digital information.
I presume that most people know that search engines have a cache which can be accessed allowing people to look at old webpages which have been archived, but, I didn't know how much had been archived and was amazed at the Internet Archive.
The archive currently is storing digital information at the rate of 20 terabytes (yes, that many nothings) a month.
Now what sort of pages does the archive keep?
Surprisingly, anything at all. A trawl through it is fascinating.
The page has a search called the WayBackMachine, and claims to have 85 billion pages.

archive

I decided to give it a try with an old site I used for a broadband campaign.

broadband_search

As you can see, it listed the above.
Now listing them are all very well, but how deep does it check?  Was it simply the front page (index), or did it actually archive the  site?

broad_front

calendar

cal2

I think you get the message from the above.
Those are some of the  old pages I pulled from their archive.
Old pages are a lot of fun and what a time waster this site can be.
But that's not all.
At the beginning I said that they had been granted a reprieve from the Digital Millenium Act, and this was because they do much more than simply archive webpages.
The archive also stores software etc as can be seen from the first grab.
Fancy reliving the old days (providing you still don't relive them through an emulator).
I did a search for Cannon fodder, one of my favourite games on Amiga and never surpassed for sheer gameplaying addictiveness.

fodder

You can view the movie from the start of the CD32? version here.
Have some fun and try out this site.
It will definitely hook you and keep you engrossed for a while.
Now, I wonder if it stores pron as well ...................
 






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