My Favorite Internet Archive Links

Another thing that's been lost over the years is the concept of favorite web sites and sharing web site links with friends. In the early days it was expected that each web site would have a "Links" page in which the website's author would list his or her favorite web sites for the user to explore on their own.. We used to share the content we found, now with the commercialization of the Internet we share all of our personal information with complete strangers, but I digress...

One of my favorite website is the Internet Archive. Not only does it embody old school Internet philosophy, but it also contains enough educational content that a single person will never come close to touching over an entire lifetime. One of the founders is Brewster Kahle which is also an early Internet pioneer. He delveloped WAIS (which I used to use extensively), and was involved with Thinking Machine's Inc which developed the ultra-cool Connection Machine supercomputers.

Buckminster Fuller Archive	This is a very long video from 1975 by Buckminster Fuller and it covers many different topics. It's worth listening to people like this mainly to understand how they think. I love free form discussions like this. Clearly the man is a genius based upon what I've seen so far. I wish my mind worked this way!
Diesel, the Modern Power	This is a delightful little book from 1936 about how diesel engines work and some of their applications such as in locomotives.
Computer Chronicles episodes	I used to watch this show on my local PBS station every week in the 80's and 90's. Hosted by Stewart Cheifet, Gary Kildall, and others. Strictly factual no nonsense television for educated people. Not surprising we don't see this kind of stuff on TV anymore..
Net Cafe episodes	Another show hosted by Stewart Cheifet in the 90's and 00's, mainly focusing on Internet topics when the Internet was starting to become popular with the early public adopters. Also hosted by cutie Jane Wither and Andrew DeVries which both seem to have no Internet presence nowadays. And I'm not putting them down for that since they were early adopters and probably value their personal privacy. The 90's shows are the most interesting in my opinion since regular folks were still using the Internet in mostly non-commercial ways.
Bitsavers.org documents	Lots of historical computer documents. Also see their main website which contains more stuff including software.
Arcade Manual Archive	Self explanitory. An archive of old arcade machine manuals. Still relevant today even if you don't own the machines, for example if you need to know DIP switch settings for MAME.
BBS Documentary interviews	I love these interviews. These are some of the extended interviews from Jason Scott's BBS Documentary movie. It's a wonderful trip back in time. Hands down the best documentary I've ever seen if only because the idea was so unique and it brings back a rush of old memories and nostalgia.
Old computer magazines	A multitude of old computer magazines. There's so much content here that it's not even worth trying to explain it. Basically, think back to the 70's and 80's and the computer magazines you used to rarely see in special book stores or newsstands, or that some rich geek friend of yours had; you should be able to find that magazine here.
Shareware CD archive	This is a rather interesting one. It consists of ISOs of old CDROM collections of shareware and files such as GIFs and other multimedia files. In the old days I vaguely recall seeing these once in a while and thinking about how it was like finding a treasure chest. 550+ MB of stuff!! OMG!!
GeoCities archive	This is a local archive of the entire geocities dump that was grabbed before Yahoo shut it down. There are other ways to browse this archive online rather than downloading this.
Newton's Principia	Sir Isaac Newton's seminal work on classical physics. There's also an updated version here which was updated to use contemporary English.
Newton's Opticks	Sir Isasc Newton's seminal work on light. The version I'm linking to here is the Project Gutenberg HTML version converted into contemporary English and includes the illustrations.
Shortwave Numbers Stations	Here is a collection of numbers stations on shortwave. Apparently this was a 4 CD collection released by Irdial called The Conet Project. This is the best available comprehensive collection of shortwave numbers recordings.
Shortwave Pirate Recordings	Here is an 11 GB collection of shortwave radio pirate station recordings from the 90's up to 2011. There is another collection here, and if you do a search for "shortwave pirate" you can find even more from various contributors.
The World Gone Mad	A delightful movie from 1933 that dramatizes corporate greed and corruption. It's an interesting look to the beginnings of the global military-industrial complex that exists today.
Operation Castle: Commander's Report	1954 video produced by the US Government on the Operation Castle series of nuclear test blasts. The Castle series produced the largest yield nuclear weapons ever tested by the US government. Nuclear fusion of lighter elements releases large amounts of energy due to the mass loss, and also produces neutrons which has the effect of boosting the fission process. That is why they call them "Hydrogen bombs" and they easily produced 10 MT or more.
Operation Castle: Military Effects	Another Operation Castle video. Nice films of the fireball and an overview of the destruction that was wreaked on the local environment.