On 18 Mar 2007 at 5:13, Dave Dunfield wrote:
Once the content of those diskettes of yours are
placed into a
repository, that content would be protected against loss to the
community. Yes, the physical disks would remain at risk, and you
should take whatever measures you feel are appropriate for them,
as you would any other item of significance in your estate.
Ah, but there's the rub in some cases. While the content may be
interesting, the physical media may well be more important. For
example, old Drivetec/Kodak disks and drives are more interesting for
archival purposes than their contents.
This is stuff that I've collected as a normal part of business--I've
mentioned before that I'm not a collector, so it's unlikely that I'm
going to expend much effort trying to preserve this material. And my
estate will be less interested.
Please note that this is not to denigrate your original observations
or statements, but rather to point out that potentially valuable
items to collectors are often just so much flotsam to the rest of the
world.
And that's what will cause a lot of artifacts to pass from this world
into the landfill.
I was thinking about why there are plenty of centuries-old violins
and other musical instruments around (I play a tuba that's nearing
the century mark and it's probably worth at least as much as it was
when it was new) while computers seem to be disappearing into the
bowels of the earth at a fast clip. Of course the answer is that a
violin made in 1720 is every bit as useful as it was when it was new;
something that can't be said for an old computer.
A lot of old brass and percussion instruments end up as decorator
items, hung on walls and whatnot. A friend recovered two fairly
expensive (>$30K each) Italian violins from the walls of the local
American Legion hall. An old Civil-War era saxhorn that had been
made into a lamp found its way to eBay recently and went for a couple
of thousand, even with a couple of holes bored in it--a restorer will
eventually bring it back to playable condition.
I'd rather see an old bombardon have a hole bored through to bell to
hang on a wall than see it get melted down as scrap.
This is sort of a wacky idea, but since old computers generally have
less utility as computers to people, how about encouraging their use
as decor? That might keep them preserved longer.
CHeers,
Chuck
Physical artifacts are a topic for another discussion.
I would
suggest that at the very least we place the following information
somewhere where it will be available to anyone with the unfortunate
task of having to clean our our basements:
- And indication that the material is important and should not be
contributed to landfill. (If you have valuable items in your
collection, I assume you would identify those for your estate).
- Names and contact information of knowlegable people who can help
in it's disposition. If nothing else, information about how to
contact this list.
Regards,
Dave
--
dave06a (at) Dave Dunfield
dunfield (dot) Firmware development services & tools:
www.dunfield.com
com Collector of vintage computing equipment:
http://www.classiccmp.org/dunfield/index.html