Book:

OPEN HISTORY. Archäologie der frühen Mikrocomputer und ihrer Programmierung

How is computer history possible from the viewpoint of computer science? By considering media archaeology’s theory of operative and thus a-historical media computer archaeology combines an interdisciplinary set of theories and methods to answer this question. At first, the problems of computer historiography (technical inaccuracy, inconsistency, and idiosyncrasy) will be deconstructed with the help of history criticism, discourse archaeology, and media archaeology. Following that, technology–oriented tools and methods are gathered for describing ‘old’ computers within an ‘archaeography’ and analyzing them within a mid-range theory. Methods of computer science, electronics, diagrammatics etc. supersede hermeneutical methods of historiography. Additional tools (re-enactment, demonstration, computer philology) from media science and other disciplines complement this set of methods. Retro computing sets the frame for 4 computer archaeological projects about early micro computers (1975-85): 1. a computer philological analysis of a ‘traditional’ computer demo; 2. the development of a “Game of Life” on an 8-bit platform; 3. the development of a new computer game for a 1978 gaming console; 4. the reparation of an 8-bit computer done by a hardware hacker. These projects are discussed afterwards to gain the specific didactical modus operandi of retro computing hobbyists. Just like historical home computing (starting from the late 1970s) retro computing autodidactically gathers theoretical, historical, and practical knowledge by trial and error, gamification, and e-learning through a “learning by doing” procedure. The confrontation of three historical examples with three actual retro computing projects will prove this. The didactical reflection of retro computing projects describes a ‘retro didactic’ that would be useful for a broad application of historic sensitive, computer scientific knowledge with the help of less complex systems like early microcomputers are.