Preserving Yesterday’s Tech to Get a Better Grasp on Today’s

n 2009, more than 47 million computers in the U.S. were ready for “end-of-life management”—so hopelessly outmoded that no reasonable amount of refurbishment could redeem them. Market-driven innovation, thus far hewing to the demanding prediction of Moore’s law, means that every few months, the gadgets in our pockets and on our desktops are pushed closer toward their . Hard drives fail, the erase-write cycle wears out our memory cells, batteries lose their ability to hold a charge, screens crack—and the devices containing these deficient parts are rarely long for this world. Meanwhile, software evolves, bits rot, and . Legacy files fail to open themselves up to us on our newer platforms, and new versions of software absorb or crush their predecessors.