Creating an software ecosystem in order to preserve the first Argentine computer language and compiler: A case study on computing archaeology

The computer language and compiler COMIC was developed at the Instituto de Cálculo (IC), Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales de la Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA FCEyN) during the years 1965 and 1966. The context where this experience took place, which today is considered the first of its kind in Argentina, deserves special attention: the isolation of the IC at that time, the reverse engineer techniques employed in the design and development, the difficulties come from the lack of documentation and the sudden end of the activities, are key issues when analyzing retrospectively the results. We foresee essential for the study of the techniques and tools implied at the CI to be able to analyse the resulting products. The most important product in the context of this research project is the COMIC itself, a computer program specially developed for a machine which is no longer available. The main objective of this paper is to introduce the project on itself to preserve COMIC, where we used a methodology that prioritizes an ecosystem creation in order to run old computer programs The actual work will introduce the different project stages, expose the first results and show how the proposed ecosystem becomes a space where future studies can take place, maybe transcending the specifically technical issues and reaching the extended ecosystem that includes the rest of the activities and people who formed the IC.