Over Christmas break, I took some of my time off to do some work in my office that I don’t usually have time for (painting, deep cleaning, organizing). I came across all of my old Adobe disks / discs going back to when the software was purchased as individual apps and my original copy of Photoshop 2 that came with my Agfa Arcus II scanner.
Does anyone have a good reason to save these, should I pitch them, make a file of old serial numbers and then pitch them?
I don’t want to be shortsighted, but, short of some sort of apocalyptic event, I don’t see a scenario that I’d ever need them — or have a machine the software would run on.
You could check with Print Museum or other - where they might not specifically want them they might have contacts to people who collect/display them etc.
I finally bit the bullet and threw away all my old physical copies of software two or three years ago. The boxes were taking up space, and the software was unusable since it was no longer compatible with my computer or its OS.
I wrote down the serial numbers of some of the software I no longer use, just in case I want to upgrade in the future, but the boxes, manuals, and discs, nope; I tossed them in the trash and haven’t regretted it since.
I keep a box of items as my personal museum. A hot waxer, non repro blue pencil, a letraset sheet, a cd of stock, a few ad paste-ups, a sheet from the old Clipper clip art library, a Zip drive, a few 1.4 disks, the box from Kai’s Power Tools, a cd of Photoshop 5, a floppy disk for an Apple II containing a game I made in my first computer class (1981)… They’re things I would never use again, but it’s a hoot to open it up every few years.
My office used to be jammed with 2- and 4-drawer filing cabinets, all of the goodies @Mojo mentioned, photography and illustration annuals, a pasteup station with a lightbox and all of the pasteup tools, a photocopier, a scanner, a huge color printer, etc.
Every couple of years, I will go through my office and pare down. I am not a hardcore minimalist, but I definitely have minimalistic tendencies. If there is something that I don’t use and has no value to me, it’s gone. Honestly, I am surprised the old software disks and discs have made it as long as they have.
I do have a collection of whole magazines and magazine articles that I’ve torn out and saved. Those are fun to bust out every once in a while.