Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 23/08/2026Claude Code made it. Free and Open Source. Do with it whatever is useful. It took a few hours of computation and seems quite promising. 010
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 23/08/2026Vibe-coded a new Disk Imaging tool "DiskWright" over the weekend. euanc.github.io/diskwright/ It's something I wanted years ago and now (hopefully - haven't been able to test on real hardware yet) exists. github.com/euanc/diskwr...euanc.github.ioDiskwright — rescue the drive inside an old computerDiskwright makes a complete, verified copy of the hard drive inside a 25–40 year old computer. Boot it from a stick or CD, answer plain-English questions, keep the data forever. 001
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 27/07/2026"The Architecture of a Missed Opportunity How early warnings about NARA's Electronic Records Archives anticipated problems that later audits would rediscover" metaarchivist.substack.com/p/the-archit...metaarchivist.substack.comThe Architecture of a Missed OpportunityHow early warnings about NARA's Electronic Records Archives anticipated problems that later audits would rediscover 000
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 16/07/2026"PlayStation killing physical discs has inspired PS5 emulator devs to ramp up development" www.pcguide.com/news/playsta...pcguide.comPlayStation killing physical discs has inspired PS5 emulator devs to ramp up developmentPS5 emulator devs seem to be reacting to Sony's bombshell announcement to stop producing physical PlayStation discs in January 2028. 000
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 14/07/2026bi weekly and bi monthly are pointless terms as they mean two different things so always have to be clarified. 000
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 28/05/2026@digitalscholarship.bsky.social are you still posting to Digital Koans? 000
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 22/04/2026"DigitalKoans and Digital Scholarship Have Been Published for 21 Years" digital-scholarship.org/digitalkoans...digital-scholarship.orgDigitalKoans and Digital Scholarship Have Been Published for 21 Years – DigitalKoans 000
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 02/03/2026. @barbaraamsterdam.bsky.social has been writing a great blog series "30 Years of Digital Preservation", she's onto issue 2 - They're all available on her blog here: digitalpreservation.nl/seeds/digitalpreservation.nlDigital Preservation Seedsby Barbara Sierman 000
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 02/03/2026"Emulating Inmagic DB/TextWorks databases with QEMU" bitsgalore.org/2026/02/16/e...bitsgalore.orgEmulating Inmagic DB/TextWorks databases with QEMUThis post explains how I used QEMU to emulate an old (2004) version of the Inmagic DB/TextWorks software, and how I used the emulation to export a legacy database to a a comma-delimited text file that... 000
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 30/01/2026"Game Preservation In The Digital Age: What Happens When Servers Die?" editorialge.com/game-preserv...editorialge.comGame Preservation In The Digital Age: What If Servers Die?Explore the importance of Game Preservation In The Digital Age and find out simple ways to protect your favorite legacy games from vanishing! 010
Reposted by Euan Cochrane Wikidata @wikidatacommunity.bsky.social · 26/01/2026Join the next Art+Feminism event in partnership with Wikimedia Deutschland: Intro to Wikidata + Archives training session 🗓 29 Jan, 15:00–18:00 UTC 💻 Online (Zoom, English) 🔗 Registration: us02web.zoom.us/meeting/regi... 112
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 02/12/2025"Google unkills JPEG XL?" tonisagrista.com/blog/2025/go... via news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4610...tonisagrista.comGoogle *unkills* JPEG XL?A quick summary of the format's road to stardom 010
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 01/12/2025So miro.com can export board "backup" files in "rtb" format. That format is a zip file with a bunch of images and "json" files inside of it. Unfortunately the .json files are full of random binary data and are not json compliant. Poor form 020
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 17/11/2025"Vintage Large Language Models" "A vintage LLM is a large language model trained on texts and potentially images or other multimodal data up to a particular date." owainevans.github.io/talk-transcr...owainevans.github.ioVintage Large Language Models 011
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 05/11/2025More gratification - so great to hear of people using @wikidatacommunity.bsky.social for digital preservation signature metadata. I just heard mention of using the Wikidata signature file in Siegfried! #ipres2025 063
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 04/11/2025"[I often find that after installing e.g. a version of flash for one artifact, I just search for it for use with other artifacts]" Paraphrased quote from Bryony Cavallaro @ the State Library of New South Wales (I think) #ipres2025 - So great to here the benefits of #EasSI being realised #AusEaaSI 032
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 04/11/2025So great to hear about the use of #AusEaaSI / #EaaSI in Australia. Hearing how it is also really useful for raising awareness of digital preservation is validating. Reminds me of my post on Digital Patinas www.dpconline.org/blog/wdpd/th... #ipres2025dpconline.orgThe Emergence of “Digital Patinas” - Digital Preservation Coalition 183
Reposted by Euan Cochrane joshuatj @joshuatj.digipres.club.ap.brid.gy · 03/11/2025Talk to Zak, Cynthia and I about Utaina, a recently completed project of mass digital preservation of about 70,000 at-risk audiovisual magnetic media at ArchivesNZ and National Library of New Zealand. Uploading our poster here. Or see the PDF version at […] [Original post on digipres.club] 126
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 30/09/2025Great post @exponentialdecay.bsky.social re: excessive storage- if we kept the software needed to make the change to the file, & kept the original unchanged file, could we just add the command to "fix" the file to the package to do on access in the future? exponentialdecay.co.uk/blog/bsdiff-...exponentialdecay.co.ukRevisiting bsdiff as a tool for digital preservation - ross spencer :: exponentialdecay.digipres :: blogI first blogged about bsdiff in 2014. How does it stand up in terms of its potential and ease of use in 2025? Let's take a look. 021
Reposted by Euan Cochrane Angela Puggioni @angelafromdpc.bsky.social · 04/09/2025#DigiPres folks👋Whether you are attending #iPRES2025 virtually, or just curious about the latest in #digitalpreservation, iPRES Radio provides a front-row seat to the global conversation happening in Wellington this year! Read our blog on how you can tune in every day during #iPres: buff.ly/viLsIIc 044
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 15/09/2025"A new disk image format" comes with McOS 26 Tahoe. arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...arstechnica.commacOS 26 Tahoe: The Ars Technica reviewLiquid Glass brings translucent sheen to the typical batch of iterative changes. 000
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 14/09/2025"Tips for installing Windows 98 in QEMU/UTM" sporks.space/2025/08/28/t... via news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4522...sporks.spaceTips for installing Windows 98 in QEMU/UTM - the sporks spaceWindows 98 runs surprisingly well in QEMU via UTM SE, but it requires some care in setting it up. It’s a great way to run old 90s Windows and DOS software on your iPad (and Mac too, though you have… C... 000
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 14/09/2025"This ultra-rare ’90s LaserDisc game console can finally be emulated on a PC You don't have to track down pricey retro hardware to play the Pioneer LaserActive anymore." arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/...arstechnica.comThis ultra-rare ’90s LaserDisc game console can finally be emulated on a PCYou don’t have to track down pricey retro hardware to play the Pioneer LaserActive anymore. 010
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 14/09/2025"All 54 lost clickwheel iPod games have now been preserved for posterity Finding working copies of the last few titles was an "especially cursed" journey." arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/...arstechnica.comAll 54 lost clickwheel iPod games have now been preserved for posterityFinding working copies of the last few titles was an “especially cursed” journey. 010
Reposted by Euan Cochrane iPRES 2025 International Conference on Digital Preservation @ipres2025.bsky.social · 11/08/2025✈️ Travel tips for your #iPRES2025 journey!🧳Local Organising Committee member and athlete, Carly, recently traveled from Wellington to Austria and back with Team New Zealand in the 2025 Roller Derby World Cup in July. Carly shares her best long-haul travel tips here: www.ipres2025.nz/post/long-ha...ipres2025.nziPRES Travel Advice: Tips for the Long-Haul JourneyLocal Organising Committee member and athlete Carly Lenz offers her top tips for long-haul travel to Aotearoa and back. 084
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 28/07/2025Ask Jeeves needs to make a comeback as an AI interface 010
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 16/07/2025" Seagate’s massive, 30TB, $600 hard drives are now available for anyone to buy Seagate's heat-assisted drive tech has been percolating for more than 20 years." arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...arstechnica.comSeagate’s massive, 30TB, $600 hard drives are now available for anyone to buySeagate’s heat-assisted drive tech has been percolating for more than 20 years. 020
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 15/07/2025AI Bitrot? "This is like inducing catastrophic brain damage in the model: with just one bit flip, accuracy can crash from 80% to 0.1%, rendering it useless,” arstechnica.com/security/202...arstechnica.comNvidia chips become the first GPUs to fall to Rowhammer bit-flip attacksGPUhammer is the first to flip bits in onboard GPU memory. It likely won’t be the last. 021
Reposted by Euan Cochrane iPRES 2025 International Conference on Digital Preservation @ipres2025.bsky.social · 15/07/2025📅 Reminder! The Call for #iPRES2025 Ad Hoc Contributions closes this Friday, 18 July 2025, End of Day, Anywhere on Earth. Don't miss out on submitting your ideas for: ⚡ Lightning Talks 🤖 Games 🐦⬛ Birds of Feather (BoF) sessions Submit your Ad Hoc contribution here: forms.gle/MzbEbo4k9Gbb...forms.gleiPRES 2025 Ad Hoc Call for ContributionsSubmit your ad hoc contribution to iPRES 2025 using this form. These contributions—such as lightning talks, games, birds of a feather sessions, and more—are reviewed lightly by the Programme… 024
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 14/07/2025LLM + FFMPEG in browser "I found that I am using ChatGPT more and more to get the FFmpeg command I need, but the process can be a bit tedious... This site attempts to solve that." vidmix.app/ffmpeg-in-pl... via news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4452...vidmix.appFFmpeg in plain english 010
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 07/07/2025"Microsoft is deprecating Publisher," " However, the brand helpfully suggests creating a macro to export all your files in PDF format so they're still viewable, www.xda-developers.com/microsoft-pu...xda-developers.comMicrosoft is deprecating Publisher, so here's 5 tools I could replace it withHow hard can it possibly be? 000
Reposted by Euan Cochrane iPRES 2025 International Conference on Digital Preservation @ipres2025.bsky.social · 27/06/2025👀 Excited to see who's speaking at #iPRES2025? Our draft programme is still in the works, but we have released an indicative list of accepted submissions of Full and Short Papers, Panels, Posters, Tutorials, and Workshops: www.ipres2025.nz/post/preview... Please note the list is subject to change.ipres2025.nzPreview of Speakers at iPRES 2025Can't wait for the official iPRES 2025 programme release? Check out our indicative list of accepted submissions so far! 046
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 27/06/2025"Games That Weren't: Preserving Cancelled and Unreleased Video Game History" www.gamesthatwerent.com via news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4438... which also mentions this EU citizens initiative www.stopkillinggames.com eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#... that needs a few more signaturesgamesthatwerent.comGames That Weren't: Cancelled & Unreleased Video GamesGames That Weren't is a Cancelled & Unreleased Video Games archive with lost prototypes, developer history and assets for many computers and consoles of all ages. 000
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 25/06/2025This is really helpful: "Writerperfect conversion tools for legacy file formats" bitsgalore.org/2025/06/10/w...bitsgalore.orgWriterperfect conversion tools for legacy file formatsThis post gives a brief introduction to the Writerperfect tools. These can be used to convert a wide range of legacy (mostly office) formats to the modern OpenDocument and EPUB formats. 010
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 23/06/2025" Microsoft surprises MS-DOS fans with remake of ancient text editor that works on Linux It's funny how useful a 34-year-old software design can still be." by @benjedwards.com arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025...arstechnica.comMicrosoft surprises MS-DOS fans with remake of ancient text editor that works on LinuxIt’s funny how useful a 34-year-old software design can still be. 062
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 22/06/2025Just listened to this fascinating two-part podcast about one of the key people behind scientific publishing's current state m.imdb.com/title/tt3688...m.imdb.com"Behind the Bastards" Part One: Robert Maxwell: How Ghislaine Maxwell's Dad Ruined Science (Podcast Episode 2025) | History1h 10m 000
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 13/06/2025"macOS Tahoe brings a new disk image format " eclecticlight.co/2025/06/12/m... via news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4425...eclecticlight.comacOS Tahoe brings a new disk image formatASIF disk images are new in Tahoe, and promise to be space efficient, as they’re sparse files, and almost as fast as the disk they’re stored on. Ideal for VMs and general use. 010
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 13/06/2025"Emulating an iPhone in QEMU (Part 2)" eshard.com/posts/emulat... via news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4426...eshard.comEmulating an iPhone in QEMU (Part 2)We pushed iOS emulation further: debugging userspace, bypassing setup, enabling multitouch and network to reach a functional home screen. 010
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 08/06/2025"FAA to eliminate floppy disks used in air traffic control systems - Windows 95 also being phased out" www.tomshardware.com/pc-component...tomshardware.comFAA to eliminate floppy disks used in air traffic control systems - Windows 95 also being phased outMillions trust their lives daily to floppy disks and Windows 95. 031
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 26/05/2025"On File Formats" solhsa.com/oldernews202... via news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4404...solhsa.comsolhsa.com - blog 000
Reposted by Euan Cochrane Michael Brown @jingajik.bsky.social · 18/05/2025Etymology of the term "dial-up connection", ca. 1978 Acoustic Coupler Modem (Sendata Model 1070) and Dial-up Phone. University of Canterbury, api.digitalnz.org/records/5664... 1101
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 14/05/2025Just exported a .rtb board backup file from miro.com. It extracts as some sort of archive using 7-zip and is made up of a bunch of JSON files and images. The canvas.json contains json fields holding binary data which is very disappointing. 000
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 13/05/2025How Cory Arcangel Recovered a Late Artist’s Digital Legacy Michel Majerus died in a plane crash, but the contents of his laptop are providing a window into his process two decades later. Arcangel says, “It’s like he just stepped out of the room.” By Kyle Chayka May 7, 2025 archive.is/Dqqe2#select...archive.is 000
Reposted by Euan Cochrane Joshua TJ Ng 🐘@joshuatj@digipres.club 🐘 @joshuatj.bsky.social · 05/05/2025#NDF25 NOW: Preservation, Connection, and Community: Utaina’s impact on the audiovisual record of NZ Aotearoa \ Jessica Moran, Kate Roberts, Louise McCrone #Utaina 144
Reposted by Euan Cochrane Valerie Love @digivall.bsky.social · 04/05/2025The first of the two international conferences that I’m helping organise this year starts tomorrow! Looking forward to seeing everyone at #NDF25 1101
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 02/05/2025Video conferencing apps should have a dedicated AFK button that you can click to say you're temporarily away from the meeting then click again to say you are back in the meeting 100
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 29/04/2025"The Hidden Hand: Galyn Susman, the Woman Who Saved Toy Story 2 From Deletion You won’t see her name in big lights. But the lights stayed on because of her." roughcut.heyeddie.ai/p/the-hidden...roughcut.heyeddie.aiThe Hidden Hand: Galyn Susman, the Woman Who Saved Toy Story 2 From DeletionYou won’t see her name in big lights. But the lights stayed on because of her. 000
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 27/04/2025"This blog is about uncontaminated content that I'm terming "Low Background Steel". The idea is to point to sources of text, images and video that were created prior to the explosion of AI-generated content that occurred in 2022." lowbackgroundsteel.ailowbackgroundsteel.aiLow Background Steel For AISources of training data that haven’t been contaminated by AI-created content. Low Background Steel... 000
Euan Cochrane @euanc.bsky.social · 23/04/2025"Restoring Old Software for Child Learning Safety" rietta.com/blog/child-l... via news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4374...rietta.comRestoring Old Software for Child Learning SafetyLearn why classic software like WordPerfect & 1st Math can boost your child's development! Explore safe retro tech & conquer digital learning challenges. 020
