Posted on 08/24/2003 7:12:45 AM PDT by Eala
The Dutch PC-Active magazine has done an extensive CD-R quality test. For the test the magazine has taken a look at the readability of discs, thirty different CD-R brands, that were recorded twenty months ago. The results were quite shocking as a lot of the discs simply couldn't be read anymore:
Roughly translated from Dutch:
The tests showed that a number of CD-Rs had become completely unreadable while others could only be read back partially. Data that was recorded 20 months ago had become unreadable. These included discs of well known and lesser known manufacturers.
It is presumed that CD-Rs are good for at least 10 years. Some manufacturers even claim that their CD-Rs will last up to a century. From our tests it's concluded however that there is a lot of junk on the market. We came across CD-Rs that should never have been released to the market. It's completely unacceptable that CD-Rs become unusable in less than two years.
On the image you can see the exact same CD-R. On the left you see the outcome of our tests done in 2001. On the right you see the same CD-R in 2003. The colours indicate the severeness of the errors in the following order; white, green, yellow and red whereas white indicates that the disc can be read well and red indicates that it cannot be read.
For those of you who are interested, the original Dutch article can be found here and in the September issue of PC-Active. Please discuss this subject in our Media Forum.
(Excerpt) Read more at cdfreaks.com ...
LOL! Well it was "original" for me. That was back in the 70's. I am dating myself now! :-)
Nickel is the stuff to use:
Edison records still play just fine.
Oh, I think it will be a few more years than that before CDs can't be read. Twenty years after turntables became obsolete, you can still buy them because there are so many vinyl records out there. If there are CDs that people want to read, the market will provide. It's not like we're going to forget how to do it, so if there is demand in the market, someone will furnish the corresponding supply.
People on this very thread have been going on about 5 1/2" drives, but you can get one here. This turned up after a quick Google search. Since CDs have a much broader array of uses than 5 1/2" floppies, I'd expect something to read CDs to be available for easily more than 25 years.
Certainly the longer term is a problem, as others have pointed out. Analog techniques like film may very well outlast digital techniques that depend on certain hardware and protocols. But I'm not worried about that for my document backups.
I do! I do!!!
I've got a few Teac combo 1.2MB/1.44MB drives just for that purpose. Plus, somewhere in the basement, I've got an 8" SSSD floppy drive! Gotta love it! CPM-80! If you can't do it in 64K and 8 bits, it doesn't need to get done!
Mark
That is when errors are made much of the time. After you have done it "hundreds" of times and get complacent.
64K???? WOW! My PDP-8 had 4K. :-)
Hey! Me too! I've got one of the Dual ULM turntables, but I never was able to get the Ortophon ULM cartridge to work well. It's still got a Stanton 681-EEE cartridge and stylus!
I guess we're both luddites! lol
Mark
But always, always, always sequence-punch them!!!
And remember, when walking them over to the card reader, rubber bands are your friends!
Mark
"This is a one-of-a-kind piece. There is no other one like this particular one in the world."
64K???? WOW! My PDP-8 had 4K. :-)
Yeah, but this is one of those new fangled, CPM-80 machines, with the high performance Zilog chip!
The first computer I worked on was a PDP-4, w/ 4K or RAM, and it booted from tape! Had to load the registers by hand, too! Fun!
Mark
I never been called a luddite before.
Packrat? yes. All the time!
Ask me about my VIC 20s...
Plastic? Good for a couple centuries max. Besides, somone somewhere, is going to think of it as a handy waterproof, decay proof fuel.
Metal? Rusts, corrodes, or worse gets melted down for other uses. Not many bronze plaques left over from Roman times. Lots of stone inscriptions, though.
Best bet, a fully oxidized material, like a ceramic or stone. Alumina might be very good, provided the size and shape doesn't lead itself to destructive uses, too thick to be broken into edged tools, too small to be used as bricks and paving stones.
Except for the data the media should be utterly useless for other applications.
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