retroTECH | Georgia Tech Library

What is retroTECH?

retroTECH invites the Georgia Tech campus community to create the future by exploring and preserving our technological pasts.

Through retroTECH, scholars and educators engage in experiential learning, hands-on research and development, and community building around how our lives shape technology--and how technology shapes our lives--over time.

The vision of retroTECH is to inspire a culture of long-term thinking, ongoing access to technological heritage, peer-to-peer discovery, and individual empowerment.

Historical image superimposed with modern technology

Visit the Lab

Visit the retroTECH Lab to interact with vintage technologies, from slide rules to Sega Genesis, as well as emulations of retro platforms on modern devices.

Have ideas and feedback about the Lab? Let us know!

3rd Floor, Main Library
266 4th Street, NW
Atlanta, GA 30332-0900

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Strategic Plan

Contact retroTECH

Services

Research & Teaching

retroTECH supports academic research or course-integrated projects on hardware and software engineering, media archaeology, user experience design, electronic literature, emulation, history of technology and society, digital archives, evolution of game creation, emerging software development, etc. Explore sample course-integrated projects related to video games and the history of user experience.

Outreach & Partnerships

retroTECH aims to engage the Georgia Tech campus community through events and workshops about the history and future of technology, held in the Lab, elsewhere on campus, and in the Atlanta area. If you’re interested in getting involved in retroTECH programming, attending events and workshops, volunteering, or sharing your expertise, the retroTECH Team would love to talk with you.

Peer-to-Peer Digital Archiving

The Tech community is full of experts in various aspects of technology who are eager to share and teach. retroTECH aims to serve as a platform for users, retroTECH team members, and expert partners to conduct peer-to-peer, do-it-yourself digital archiving, working together to recover, access, emulate, and preserve materials needed for research, personal archiving, or donating to Archives and Special Collections.

Donations, Showcases & Ideas

retroTECH's Collection Development Policy guides the curation of our modest collection of functioning hardware and software and outlines the materials we hope to collect. If you’re interested in donating hardware, software, or digital collections, lending items from your collection for temporary display, or if you have ideas for items we might collect in order to support academic research, please get in touch.

Interested in outreach, events, teaching or donating to retroTECH?

Initiatives

Preserving Software

In collaboration with the Software Preservation Network, retroTECH was one of six teams from across the country to participate in a software preservation and emulation research cohort funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services. Read about our project and explore the prototype, retroTECH Online.

Documenting Computing Cultures

retroTECH's Georgia Tech Computing Cultures Documentation Strategy is an effort to identify gaps in the historical record of individuals in the Georgia Tech community who are involved in teaching, research, and innovation related to computing. The retroTECH team is engaged in proactive efforts to fill those gaps and preserve and provide access to a more comprehensive record going forward.