> some of our artifacts might get accidentally preserved as well
IIRC (not likely these decades later), when recovering old MIT AI Lab backups (9-track tape goes slowly by a read head, yielding bits, plastic backing, and a pile of magnetic dust), one lisp machine backup contained a core dump file, which included the screen buffer. A single moment of someone's long-ago day, with assorted windows, including the cause of the dump. And a bit of graphics fun - a critter crawling across the screen - frozen in time.
IIRC (not likely these decades later), when recovering old MIT AI Lab backups (9-track tape goes slowly by a read head, yielding bits, plastic backing, and a pile of magnetic dust), one lisp machine backup contained a core dump file, which included the screen buffer. A single moment of someone's long-ago day, with assorted windows, including the cause of the dump. And a bit of graphics fun - a critter crawling across the screen - frozen in time.