Digital Preservation
We help build Emulation-as-a-Service: recreating the full environment old software needs — the original hardware, operating system, local software, even the period web browser — so legacy and born-digital works run again today.
FÄRG, FORM OCH FRÖJD AB · ORG. 559164-8877 · UPPSALA 59.86°N 17.64°E OPEN FOR PROJECTS
Software conservation & software services
We keep software
running. usable. documented. alive.
We revive legacy and born-digital software by recreating the whole environment it needs to run — and we build new applications on technology that keeps pace. For archives, museums, universities, and industry.
Museums/ Archives/ Universities/ Software vendors/ Manufacturing/ Governments/Museums/ Archives/ Universities/ Software vendors/ Manufacturing/ Governments/
§ 01
/ THREE PRACTICESWhat we do
Software Services
New applications are a different discipline. The work starts with understanding — your processes, your domain, your people — drawing on a background across industrial engineering, business, and conservation. Built on current, well-supported technology, and kept up to date as it moves.
Websites & Engineering
Design and build for studios, institutions, and small businesses — fast, accessible, and durable. And engineering services beyond the web: mathematical models, thermodynamics, and decades of hands-on experience.
§ 02
/ 01 — 04Ongoing projects
01 Born-digital software works Bachelor thesis — preserving software-based art through emulation PRESERVATION↗ 02 Software Conservation Lab Emulated environments & preservation workflows at Technisches Museum Wien PRESERVATION↗ 03 Tooling & thermodynamics Python & Svelte software for a heat-pump manufacturer SOFTWARE↗ 04 Reopen Drop an old file and find out what it is and what it needs to run again — in your browser TRY IT↗
§ 03
/ THE PROBLEMWhy it matters
A work that only
exists while
it's running.
A photograph survives in a drawer. Software doesn't — update the operating system and the work can be gone. Preserving it isn't about copying files; it's about keeping the whole machine it lived inside able to run again.
- 01
There's no single original
Experience a software work twice and it's never quite the same — resolution, refresh rate, the look of the operating system. The conservator decides what the work really is, and writes down why.
- 02
Emulation pretends to be the old machine
Software that imitates the dead hardware, opened inside a web browser. The artwork behaves as if nothing ever changed — no original disk, no original computer required.
§ 04
/ CASE STUDIESThree works, three problems
Tod dem Fernsehen
An interactive art CD-ROM from 1990s Vienna, built for a Macintosh that no longer exists. Emulation lets it run again in your browser today.
Run it ↗
Bomb Iraq
A program found on a second-hand Mac. The conservator kept it all — the font, the wallpaper, a stranger's homework — because that was the artwork too.
View on ArtBase ↗
Every Icon
A process, not a picture: a grid working through every possible image. What matters is that it keeps running — at the right speed.
View on ArtBase ↗§ 05
/ COUNTING, LIVEThe obsolescence clock
Software doesn't decay like paper. It is switched off, on a date. Every one of these still holds somebody's work.
- The year-2038 problem 4,128 days to go on 19 Jan 2038 · 11 years, 110 days 32-bit Unix clocks run out of seconds; old systems will think it is 1901.
- Windows 10 352 days without support since 14 Oct 2025 End of support for the most-used desktop system of the last decade.
- Internet Explorer 11 1,569 days without support since 15 Jun 2022 · 4 years, 108 days Retired. Intranets and web art built for it render differently, or not at all.
- Adobe Flash Player 2,100 days without support since 31 Dec 2020 · 5 years, 274 days End of support for twenty years of web games, animation and interactive art.
- Windows 7 2,452 days without support since 14 Jan 2020 · 6 years, 261 days End of support. Still running many a lab instrument and museum kiosk.
- 32-bit apps on the Mac 2,551 days without support since 7 Oct 2019 · 6 years, 360 days macOS Catalina stopped running them: a decade of Mac software, gone overnight.
- Adobe Shockwave Player 2,732 days without support since 9 Apr 2019 · 7 years, 175 days Discontinued. Director-made CD-ROMs and web works lost their player.
- Windows XP 4,559 days without support since 8 Apr 2014 · 12 years, 176 days End of extended support — yet it still runs machines in factories and archives.
How we work
We build for two
people at once.
The technician who runs the system, and the decision-maker who has to stand behind it. So our tools carry more than settings — they carry the reasoning: what was done, what was at stake, and why.
The technician
Sees how it's built — environments, parameters, the exact state a system runs in. Nothing hidden, nothing guessed.
The decision-maker
Sees why — the rationale, the risks, and the judgement behind each choice, recorded right alongside the configuration.
Let's talk