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cyhist Apr. 8 1998 A
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========================================================================= Date: Wed, 8 Apr 1998 09:54:04 -0700
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Berm Lee <bermlee@POMONA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Card Readers- physical/tech lifetime of media
In-Reply-To: <352AFAAC.86E77568@acm.org> MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
At 11:18 PM 4/7/98 -0500, Don Garrett wrote:
>A secondary problem that occurs is that most digital media fades. I have been told that a good 360k floppy should be reliable 5 years, and a cheap one is only dependable for 3 (some of my cheap ones wouldn't do that). My only source for this is memory of an email from a helpful data security consultant some years ago.
>... tapes having melted together with age.
>It seems to me that CDs would be a fairly good choice, but that direct access devices would be better...
This discussion is actually becoming personally relevant as the question arises, how reliable are the magnetic and optical media we use? I've seen a writable CD-ROM peel its optical layer either out of carelessness (scratch or exposure to heat) or age. At this point it seems that paper punch cards are the least volatile. A lot of us have started using Zip disks that have a rumoured lifetime of 3 years, which isn't too appealing for those of us who have been archiving our work on this media. Many of us PC users have CD-ROM titles that don't run anymore (including Bill Gates' "Road Ahead!"), I constantly convert my many of my files into ASCII or some other standard file format, because I do have files dating back to dead OSes in my comparatively short life (I've been a user of dead GUI environments like DR-GEM Desktop), but there's a limit to how much we can spend time doing this, or use the technique effectively, which points to a need for file systems to automatically recognize what needs to be archived and what needs to be converted. So, How long are the media lifetimes of current technologies, and how long will these technologies last? Do major manufacturers (like Sony) commit to building machines capable of reading obsolete and soon-to-be obsolete media?
People who have been working with computers before the personal computing age may be have a better chance of answering these questions.
Shoebox archiving sounds good right about now. Stuff and forget, stuff and forget. Retrieved 50 years later by grandchildren.
Berm Lee
Berm Lee Science, Technology and Society
Pomona College
| bermlee@pomona.edu
| http://pages.pomona.edu/~bermlee
______________________________________________________________________
Reply-To: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> Sender: "CYHIST Community Memory: Discussion list on the History of
Cyberspace" <CYHIST@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU> From: Berm Lee <bermlee@POMONA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Card Readers- physical/tech lifetime of media
In-Reply-To: <352AFAAC.86E77568@acm.org> MIME-version: 1.0
Content-type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
______________________________________________________________________
Community Memory: Discussion List on the History of Cyberspace ______________________________________________________________________
At 11:18 PM 4/7/98 -0500, Don Garrett wrote:
>A secondary problem that occurs is that most digital media fades. I have been told that a good 360k floppy should be reliable 5 years, and a cheap one is only dependable for 3 (some of my cheap ones wouldn't do that). My only source for this is memory of an email from a helpful data security consultant some years ago.
>... tapes having melted together with age.
>It seems to me that CDs would be a fairly good choice, but that direct access devices would be better...
This discussion is actually becoming personally relevant as the question arises, how reliable are the magnetic and optical media we use? I've seen a writable CD-ROM peel its optical layer either out of carelessness (scratch or exposure to heat) or age. At this point it seems that paper punch cards are the least volatile. A lot of us have started using Zip disks that have a rumoured lifetime of 3 years, which isn't too appealing for those of us who have been archiving our work on this media. Many of us PC users have CD-ROM titles that don't run anymore (including Bill Gates' "Road Ahead!"), I constantly convert my many of my files into ASCII or some other standard file format, because I do have files dating back to dead OSes in my comparatively short life (I've been a user of dead GUI environments like DR-GEM Desktop), but there's a limit to how much we can spend time doing this, or use the technique effectively, which points to a need for file systems to automatically recognize what needs to be archived and what needs to be converted. So, How long are the media lifetimes of current technologies, and how long will these technologies last? Do major manufacturers (like Sony) commit to building machines capable of reading obsolete and soon-to-be obsolete media?
People who have been working with computers before the personal computing age may be have a better chance of answering these questions.
Shoebox archiving sounds good right about now. Stuff and forget, stuff and forget. Retrieved 50 years later by grandchildren.
Berm Lee
Berm Lee Science, Technology and Society
Pomona College
| bermlee@pomona.edu
| http://pages.pomona.edu/~bermlee
______________________________________________________________________
