Changelog

Version 5.7 — 2026-07-03

Upgrade managed by Riley Delwiche. Code by Claude with human supervision.

Taxonomy — Hardware categories went from a flat list of 42 to a hierarchical taxonomy of 154 — 13 top-level families, 104 sub-types, and 37 fine-grained types.
Automated categorization — All ~16,800 hardware items were re-examined by an AI process that reads each item’s description — and researches the web when the text was too thin — categorizing on evidence rather than guesswork.
Content — This cleared a large backlog: 2,791 items sat in the catch-all “Other,” and roughly 6,500 in total carried only a broad top-level label — among them 2,176 “Calculators,” 693 “Video Games,” 326 “Storage,” and 313 “Peripherals.”
Refinement — Another 1,874 items with a specific category were moved to a better fit. More than 11,000 items were recategorized in all, while about 5,900 were confirmed already correct.
Sources — 2,252 new citations were added from reliable references, with self-references and low-quality sources filtered out.
Transparency — Every recategorized item carries a plain-English revision note — what it changed from, what to, and the reasoning — so any edit can be reviewed, explained, or reversed.

Version 5.6 — 2026-07-02

Upgrade managed by Riley Delwiche. Code by Claude with human supervision.

Search — Site search now matches whole words, so “Turing” no longer surfaces unrelated entries like “manufacturing.”
Search — Searches now ignore accent marks and umlaut spellings — “Klara” finds “Klára,” and “Moeller” finds “Möller.”
Browsing — Hardware and Software filter menus now show live item counts (e.g. “Computers (1,983)”) and narrow one another, hiding empty options and recalculating instantly, including the “only with images” toggle.
Hardware & Software — Each item’s Type now shows its full category path (e.g. “Storage › Floppy Disk › 8-inch Floppy”) on the item page, results summary, and cards, each level clickable.
Articles — A new “Filter by Author” menu lists every contributor with a count of their articles, plus a one-click “Reset to All Authors.”
Editing — The “Type of hardware” field now uses the same cascading pop-out menu as the browse filter, sharing a single component so the two always match.
Browsing — Filter controls now stay evenly spaced at any window size, wrapping onto new lines and stacking one per line on phones.

Version 5.5 — 2026-07-02

Upgrade managed by Aaron Sylvan. Code by Claude with human supervision.

Member Profiles — Every contributor now has a refreshed public profile with photo, bio, and a new “Content Portfolio” of everything they’ve added to the archive.
Content Portfolio — Each member’s work appears as a thumbnail grid, filterable by type and by whether they Authored, Edited, or Adjusted it.
Contribution Credit — Profiles tally, by category, how many items a person authored, edited, or adjusted, each figure linked to those items; a glitch counting bulk maintenance as authorship was fixed.
Honorees & Leadership — Profiles now link to a member’s Honoree or Leadership entry, and every member has a short, consistent address (e.g. ithistory.org/user/plyons).
Page Layout — Basic Pages can now hide their large title heading and offer a full-width, edge-to-edge layout — both as simple per-page checkboxes.
Donors — Several giving-circle names now carry a short descriptor line, and the page was tidied (even Pioneers grid, Babbage Circle gifts grouped at the top).
Leadership — The Board & Trustees filter is now labeled buttons (All, Current Board, Trustees, Emeritus, Memorial), and “Deceased” was renamed “Memorial” throughout.
Articles — The Articles index now builds blurbs from the full post text (no mid-line cutoff), renders special characters correctly, shows each post’s author, and is titled “Articles.”
Editing — Every database index page gained a permission-aware “Add” button (Add Hardware, Add Software, and so on) in the Society’s gold accent.
Content — All 102 blog posts now carry a Public Domain or Creative Commons image (mostly Wikimedia Commons) with credit, caption, and alt-text; unlicensed press photos were removed and each image verified by eye.
Content — All ~610 blog outbound links were checked; dead ones were repointed to the Internet Archive or unlinked with their wording intact, and temporary failures were rescued.
Search — Blog articles are now included in site search, with an “Articles” option in the results filter.
Platform — Drupal core was updated to 11.4.0 (with Search API and supporting libraries), resolving several security advisories, including one rated critical.