Computer Emulation as a Digital Preservation Strategy of Computer Systems and Software

Abstract

Due to the development and rise of areas such as electrical engineering, computer science and informatics, the area of digital preservation has also emerged the main focus of which is the preservation of digital artifacts. In the first part of the article, we give a systematic review of a wide range of approaches to digital preservation, followed by the main contribution which focuses mainly on computer emulation which accompanied, with the museum approach, offers a unified and complete approach to digital preservation. The main purpose of the article is to describe the methods, approaches, techniques and experiences gained by the digital preservation of Slovenian computer legacy and implementations of emulators of two rare retro computers. In addition to processor and device emulation, other aspects of preservation, such as environment emulation and host integration, are also important for the digital preservation of computer systems. The article provides a systematic overview of the preservation aspects of emulations together with system techniques for their implementation.