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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roms. endless roms.
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.
Just for look at older versions of sites
I went to IA a few moments ago to read a website that went offline months ago. IA had not saved that website.
Was searching for a 3d model to print some months ago.
I spotted one after a while but the download available was only for an updated version, and needed the old version.
Managed to pull off the old download link from the archive and get the file. I was pretty stoked that it worked.
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.
There is an official polish Neon Genesis Evangelion voiceover that aired on TV once. All the other versions are with subtitles.
At least one per week, in various ways. Websites that no longer exist, obscure media I want to study… It’s great!
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
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.
I once used it every day for about two weeks trying to track down the original helpfiles and maxscript documentation for 3dsmax 4 and blender for windowsME. … across various dead webpages, etc etc. Only ended up finding it on some completely unrelated warez disk. As for the really really old blender version? I don’t remember. I don’t even think I have the files anymore
Yes often. I regularly work on fixing up old computers and electronics, often Archive is the place to go for old manuals and schematics. Old firmware and software is also on there.
It’s so much better for people to put stuff on the Archive instead of in a random forum post somewhere with a broken download link.
Grateful Dead concert recordings and downloading old software/ roms.
Yeah, I wanted to read an article that I found in a search engine, but the og website had it removed now. I went to internet archive, but it didn’t have it fetched unfortunately.
I use it for light novels like Overlord and Mushoku Tensei
