This morning I discovered Internet Archive (IA) and the Wayback Machine. Here's what Wikipedia says (in part) about it.
The Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) is a digital time capsule created by the Internet Archive. It is maintained with content from Alexa Internet. This service allows users to see archived versions of web pages across time—what the Archive calls a "three dimensional index."
Snapshots become available 6 to 12 months after they are archived. The frequency of snapshots is variable, so not all updates to tracked web sites are recorded, and intervals of several weeks sometimes occur.
As of 2009 the Wayback Machine contained about 3 petabytes of data and was growing at a rate of 100 terabytes per month, as compared with the 12 terabytes/month growth rate reported in 2003. Its growth rate eclipses the amount of text contained in the world's largest libraries, including the Library of Congress. The data is stored on Petabox rack systems manufactured by Capricorn Technologies.
In 2009, the Internet Archive migrated its customized storage architecture to Sun Open Storage, and hosts a new datacenter in a Sun Modular Datacenter on Sun Microsystems' California campus.
The name Wayback Machine is a reference to a segment from The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show in which Mr. Peabody, a bow tie-wearing dog with a professorial air, and his human "pet boy" assistant Sherman use a time machine called the "WABAC machine" to witness, participate in, and more often than not alter famous events in history.
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