Stefan Höltgen, "Open History: The Archaeology of Retrocomputing" (Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2021)

Today I talked to Stefan Höltgen about his book Open History: The Archaeology of Retrocomputing (Kulturverlag Kadmos, 2021). How can historical computers be described properly 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 (H. Whyte, R. G. Collingwood), discourse archaeology (M. Foucault), and media archaeology (W. Ernst). 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 (from theoretical, practical, and technical c.s.), electronics, logics, mathematics, and diagrammatics supersede hermeneutical methods of historiography. Additional tools (re-enactment, demonstration, computer philology) from media science and other disciplines complement this set of methods. The objects of the following analyzation are early microcomputers (1975-95). Retro computing, that has been practiced for decades as a hobbyistic way of computer archaeology, sets the frame for four computer archaeological projects that had been implemented within media scientific seminars (and other occasions): 1. a computer philological analysis of a ‘traditional’ computer demo (simulating a jumping ball) on different platforms and in different programming languages since the 1960s; 2. the development of a “Game of Life” on an 8-bit platform to examine the didactical and ‘historiographical’ potentialities of cellular automata; 3. the development of a new computer game for a 1978 gaming console to examine the differences between software emulation and material hardware; 4. the reparation of an 8-bit computer from 1976 done by a hardware hacker to analyze the tools, methods