Preserving computing history: Recovering Eric Graham's 1987 Amiga Juggler raytracer source code
By
Chris Hanson
The kind of bagel that ruins lesser bagels for you.
Summary
The article details the process of recovering and modernizing Eric Graham's original 1987 Amiga Juggler raytracer source code. It covers the historical significance of the Juggler animation as a groundbreaking demo that showcased the Amiga's capabilities, the technical challenges of recovering old data formats, and the preservation efforts to make the source code readable and usable on modern machines. The piece blends technical retro-computing work with digital preservation and historical appreciation.
Key quotes
· 3 pulledThe Juggler animation was ground-breaking and Earth-shattering.
Even the Amiga's creators (Commodore) didn't believe it had been made on an Amiga.
Sometimes that means a fun side quest in the mystical realms of curiosity, preservation, and the practical problem of getting old data into a form that can be read and used on a current machine.
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