Abstract
This paper focuses on the problem of maintenance in the history of software.
As all of the papers in this session argue, the problem of maintenance is a ubiqui-
tous but neglected element of the history of technology. All complex technological
systems eventually break down and require repair (some more so than others), and,
in fact, as David Edgerton has suggested, maintenance is probably the central ac-
tivity of most technological societies.2 But maintenance is also low-status, difficult,
and risky. Engineers and inventors don’t like maintenance, and generally don’t do
maintenance, and therefore historians of technology have largely ignored it.
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