The Dead Media Project was initially proposed by science fiction writer Bruce Sterling in 1995 as a compilation of obsolete and forgotten communication technologies.
[1] Sterling's original motivation for compiling the collection was to present a wider historical perspective on communication technologies that went beyond contemporary excitement for the internet, CD-ROMs and VR systems.
[citation needed] After articulated in the manifesto "The Dead Media Project — A Modest Proposal and a Public Appeal,"[1] The Dead Media Project began as a number of persons collecting their notes and the spreading of the archive through a mailing list, moderated by Tom Jennings.
This resulted in a large collective of "field notes" about obsolete communication technologies, about 600 in total archived online.
[citation needed] The project archive includes a wide variety of notes from Incan quipus, through Victorian phenakistoscopes, to the departed video games and home computers of the 1980s.