Posted on 11/29/2004 8:47:34 AM PST by Dr. Zzyzx
In case you have not noticed, technology changes.
I would bet the house on the fact that CD's as we know them today will not exist in 100 years.
Even if that was not the case, even CDs can be damaged, and all the data on them lost.
Preserving information is nothing new. It is funny that books printed several hundred years ago are in some cases in better shape then book printed in the last century (has something to do with the acid in the paper).
Important information will be preserved (at a great cost) but for the average individual, many memories that are being faithfully stored on computer hard drives and on CDs will simply fade away.
Again, this is not a new problem, think of Egypt. The records of a whole civilization was lost for thousands of years because no one could "read" the database (hieroglyphs)
They curved their history into stone, and yet it was lost for a very long time. We store our history as magnetic bits, where too much heat, or a strong magnetic field can wipe it all out.
My advise, if you have important information (and photographs) put them on paper. It will have a better chance of surviving the next hundred years.
Carolyn
Yeah, bring the older, more permanent media, like film (early ones ignite spontaneously), paper photo prints (faded, crumbling, flammable), vinyl (scratches, dust, warping), tape (media flakes off, brittleness, wear).
Let's face it: the only way to make sure something is going to last for the ages is to engrave it in clay and then fire the clay.
Or embed it in a fruitcake.
BUMP
I plan to beam all of my important data into the Phantom Zone, where time stands still for all eternity.
I just bought a new 27” TV. It was cheaper than having the old one repaired.
correct. I posted without thinking how old the system in question was.
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Video tape degausses itself in ~7 or 8 years.
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Bull. I played my wedding video a few months ago to transfer it to DVD. The tape was 14 years old. Quality was fine.
I played a video of some time I spent in Japan. That was 20 years ago. The tape played just fine.
I have two japanese movies I purchased back then as well. Both are 20 years old on VHS. The quality is just fine.
Your tapes don't deteriorate because they degauss, they deteriorate from wear and tear as you play them in a tape player.
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I sure would like to be able to retrieve my collage work from my old 5” floppies – done on a Commodore. The trusty Commodore died, and with it the ability to read the disks.
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Buy a Commodore on ebay. Build a cable to allow your PC to connect to your Commodore disk drive (plans are on the internet), run a C64 emulator, and make image files of your disks.
It takes a little work, so you have to decide how badly you want to old files.
In the future we will all have massive storage fruitcakes.
Paint Shop Pro. Next question?
Probably. I've got the full manual with schematics for it though. I've considered taking it to a place around here that repairs archaeic hardware like that and see what they think it would take to fix it up completely. I really just can't stand to let the old thing go into the trash, because it's survived almost 40 years, and like me, deserves more than that. (Zeugma and my Tandberg were made the same year!) :-)
Interesting discussion....
Semper Fi
Not a big deal. As long as the format is documented, somebody will always be able to create a program to read the data. This just means that undocumented formats (e.g. MS Word) are a bad choice for archiving.
Check-out The Soundsmith. They specialize in classic audio equipment, including Tandberg. They even custom-make parts which are no longer available. Earlier this year they re-built my 28 year-old Bang & Olufsen Beogram 4002 turntable. Here's the link:
http://www.sound-smith.com/tandparts.html
Missy Leblanc, where are you?
The great irony of the Information Age: in 100 years, nothing from now will be remembered.
I hear the Texas Air National Guard has some old equipment.
Disks have been growing fast enough that I just copy the _entire_ contents of the old disk into a subdirectory of my new one, when I upgrade. I've owned disks of sizes (in Megabytes, guesstimating) 5, 10, 20, 40, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1600, 3000, 6000, 15000, 30000, and 80000. And that 80 Gb drive is looking pretty small compared to what's out there today.
Don't expect to use offline media as archival storage. Keep it all online, and all backed up. When a new backup media comes into vogue, throw out the old ones once you have a few good generations of new backups. Removable IDE drives are currently the most cost effective backup media - lower cost per bit than tapes, and easier to work with.
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