What is our responsibility?

Today, a middle school student asked me about my first computer. I remember it well... an Apple IIc that had 128k of memory... (I got the upgrade from 64k so that I could use a color monitor in the future!)... it booted from 5.25 inch floppy disks. AppleWorks was my word processor throughout college and into my teaching career. Oh yeah, I paid $2000 for it!

To show my students what the machine looked like, I did a Google image search and the results included a story about a brand new in the box Apple IIc that was purchased in 2008. The story was the machine was purchased in 1998 and had never been opened. I bought my Apple IIc in 1986, so the dates don't quite match, but that raised the question to me of our responsibility to preserve old technology.

I do not want to suggest that every device ever made is worth keeping, but there must be some machines that have social and technological significance that is worth preserving. How do we decide which ones?How do we provide for their preservation? Should we maintain them as operating devices or is it enough to just look at the screens and keyboards?