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.
reading defunct webcomics
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.
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.
roms. endless roms.
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.
through time
Dude, you’re saying this as though the internet has been around for millennia. And as if you’ve never been to / heard of a library.
I’ve downloaded a ton of music videos to create my own self-hosted MTV station. I’ve downloaded music and books. I’ve used it to view non-paywalled (NYT) articles shared on Lemmy. I live in Philadelphia so I’ve used it to look up the earliest version of the “yellow pages” or “white pages” from the 1800s. I’ve searched for the videos they used to show us in elementary school on 16mm - stuff about the expansion of the USA, the national parks, history of my state or city, etc. I’ve used it to look up tv commercials from the 1980s for a bit of nostalgia and older tv shows that people have uploaded from their personal VHS collection. Some people just upload personal stuff that’s entirely mundane but voyeuristically interesting. And I’m certain I haven’t even scratched the surface of what’s on there.
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.
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.
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.
They’ve got a lot of old manuals scanned in, so I use it to reference those a lot.
A lot of difficult to find movies are on there . That’s what I use it for.
I use it all the time for books and audiobooks.
But I must say, that I read A LOT and don’t want to always read the new and popular stuff. Especially if you leave mainstream and the big markets (US, UK and Europe) you can find a lot of great books by authors from smaller countries that are not available otherwise. Often the translations are out of print and never been available as ebook and the scanned and digitised version by the Internet Archive is the only one I can find.
Ever tried to read the Chinese classic epos “Journey to the west” in full (not just the monkey King story)? It’s in the archive. Or have you heard of one of Surinames most important writers Cynthia McLeod or read the poetry collection of Guyanese writer Grace Nichols? Or a translation of Syrias most important Poet Adunis? The Internet Archive has it all. You just have to look for it.
It also has the free domain classics from several other projects all in one place. And not to forget old movies and television. I recently watched “9 to 5” the feminist classic with Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lilly Tomlin there recently because no other streaming service had it.
Of course if you are only into blockbusters and bestsellers, the Internet Archive can’t help you there.
