Software Preservation Group (SPG)

Douglas Engelbart & team demonstrate NLS/Augment software (c. 1975), Software Collections Committee meeting Jan.,2006

In Fall 2003, the Software Preservation Group (SPG) was formed by a group of trustees, staff, and volunteers to explore how to collect and preserve software in support of the Museum mission. The work of the SPG includes:

• Preserving and collecting software
• Identifying best practices
• Fostering an open alliance of the many broadly-based collecting efforts taking place today

The SPG maintains a web site describing its current projects, which include early FORTRAN, Lisp, and NLS/Augment.

Related Materials

History of FORTRAN and FORTRAN II

This was a pilot project of the Software Preservation Group to develop expertise in the collection, preservation, and presentation of historic software.

History of LISP

LISP was one of the earliest high-level programming languages, introduced ideas such as garbage collection, recursive functions, symbolic expressions, and dynamic type-checking; it is still in use.

NLS Augment Index

NLS was a revolutionary collaboration system designed by Douglas Engelbart and his team in the Augmentation Research Center at the Stanford Research Institute during the 1960s and 1970s.

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