Presented in 1985 as a graphical extension of MS-DOS, Windows began as a new way to access a computer, not as the standalone system many users would later know. The available evidence establishes that broad shift, but not the detailed experience of each release.
Introduced in 1981, the IBM PC 5150 paired a recognisable configuration with choices that helped compatible machines emerge. Its influence can be outlined, but these sources do not establish what everyday use was like.
Analyzes how the floppy disk transcended its technical function to become an object of documentation and archiving, exploring cataloging and preservation practices in the context of home computing.
Analyzes how plain text editors and their file formats defined information preservation in the digital era, distinguishing them from proprietary word processors.
The Apple IIc brought a disk drive and peripheral ports together in a compact case. Its design offers a way to examine how a computer’s physical layout shaped what could be described and preserved, although the available sources do not, by themselves, reconstruct users’ home routines.
An archival record can show how a computer-related storage medium was identified, but it cannot by itself reconstruct its entire domestic use. Reading formats, physical units and documentary limits helps separate what is known from what remains unproven.
The history of technology is not simply a succession of inventions. Comparing documented tasks, uses and promises helps explain what changed—and what the available sources still leave unclear.
A drive, a storage medium and the record that describes them are different kinds of evidence. Archival standards help distinguish them, but cannot reconstruct a domestic routine that the sources do not show.
To understand how a home computer was used, it helps to look beyond the machine: its peripherals and storage media also had to be identified, preserved and described. Archival documentation offers clues about this relationship—and about what cannot be inferred from a storage medium alone.
A shared game can be local, networked, or described in terms of cooperation. The available sources allow us to distinguish these approaches, but not to collapse them into one history or date their development precisely.
Archival and cataloguing standards show that removable media cannot be understood by its physical form alone: the storage unit, its contents and their description also matter. What these sources do—and do not—allow us to say about home-computer use.
In a museum, a computer can be more than an administrative tool: it can connect an object with its history, condition and the documents that help explain it. Technology serves a collection when it makes that context accessible, not when it replaces it.
