Built on Digital Sand: A Media Archaeologist Digs the Lonely Shores of Binary Obsolescence

Bruce Sterling is a science fiction author and media writer.

Technology affects society in two ways: by its presence and by its absence. The twentieth century was the nineteenth century with automobiles, but without horses. People rarely pay attention to technological absences. New technologies attract a frenzy of interest, while dead technologies are curiosities or embarrassments. That's because we live in a commercial society, and it is hard to sell dead technologies. Dead technologies have fallen out of the revenue stream. They lie beached on the deserted shores of obsolescence. It is hard to promote or sell a technology that no longer exists. Except for the occasional hobbyist or intellectual eccentric, no one wants to retail the defunct.

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