E-lit works were often created with proprietary authoring systems such as Hypercard and Storyspace.   Even in the early days of the WWW, the technical utility of these programming options persisted.   While updating Web works can be tricky, because the elements of these pieces (text, images, sound) are not “compiled,” they can be reclaimed.  This is not the case with proprietary authoring software.  And, since many of the proprietary systems have ceased to be supported by their original or subsequent companies, it is difficult to unravel and recover the content from the compilation software.   Moreover, as is the case with Hypercard, the source code may be unavailable.  

Examples:  So, While a Web work can look almost the same years later if it still operates, (here, Carolyn Guertin’s *Skeleton Sky*), pieces done in proprietary softwares emerge quite changed in a different software system.  As a result, some of the classic e-literature can be recreated in contemporary technology (as we see with Deena Larsen’s *Marble Springs* and Bill Bly’s *We Descend*) – but, too, the process is slow and difficult – and, in some sense, we lose, no matter how archaic, the look-feel of the early version.