Three programs, one mission.
The Foundation works on three fronts at once: rescue the software, exhibit it for the public, and teach the history behind it. Each program feeds the others — what we recover becomes what we exhibit and what we teach.
Preservation & Archival
We recover software from degrading magnetic media before it is lost for good.
Public Exhibitions
We build interactive web exhibits that make this history legible to anyone.
Education & Outreach
We publish, teach, and speak — turning archives into living knowledge.
Preservation & Archival
Most software from 1977 to 1998 survives only on media that is actively dying — floppies demagnetize, cassettes stretch, and EPROMs forget. We treat each title with the rigor of a manuscript: image it, document it, and place a conserved master beyond reach of a single hard-drive failure.
Bit-accurate dumps of floppies, cassettes, cartridges, and ROMs.
Manuals, schematics, and box ephemera scanned at archival resolution.
Every title described with provenance, hardware, and condition metadata.
Conserved masters held offline; public copies served free, forever.
Magnetic media has a practical shelf life of 20–30 years. The window to recover much of this era closes within our lifetimes. Once a master is gone, it is gone.
Public Exhibitions
An archive no one can read is just a warehouse. We build free, interactive web exhibits that put this history in front of the public — researchers and the merely curious alike.
PETSCII.org
A definitive reference for Commodore's proprietary character set — every glyph, its history, and the art it made possible.
petscii.orgreadybasic.org
"READY." — an interactive history of Microsoft BASIC for the MOS 6502, the prompt that taught a generation to program.
readybasic.orgEducation & Outreach
Preservation is only half the work. We turn what we recover into knowledge people can use — in print, in person, and in the classroom.
The Journal
"From the Archive" — essays, research, and technical teardowns from staff historians and guest contributors.
Talks & Workshops
Hands-on sessions at libraries, schools, and user groups — booting real machines, reading real listings.
School Partnerships
Curriculum and primary sources for educators teaching the history of computing.