Defining Disk Image Dump Standard

You don't get it, do you? I'm saying it's probably a bad idea to use floppy media. This is because it's mechanical, (2) because it's organic, and (3) because it is soon to become obsolete. Aside from problems of data format incompatibility, you have to deal with the mechanism to be able to read/write the archive's constituent elements. If an element of any medium has more than one file on it, not necessarily a bad thing though I'd say it's risky and inconvenient, that file can identify itself at its beginning and end, Begin <filename.ext>, End <filename.ext>. That way it doesn't matter over time what the medium is, at least insofar as your file format is concerned. The choice of medium is important, since floppies, however handy, are not going to be around forever. CD's are probably too small for some things, but maybe they're a better format. They're organic, too, however, so they'll be unduly sensitive to heat, not to mention chemicals, etc. Floppies are much less stabile over varying environmental conditions. OTP EPROMS are pretty stabile, however, and they're VERY small. If you're serious about creating an archive. It needs to be permanent, so it's essentially requisite that the media be write-once. I'd say you're better off with an OTP EPROM. Hardware to create them is dirt-simple to create, eraseable/rewritable equivalents are readily available, and even if the OTP's (very inexpensive, by the way) become scarce, there will still be rewritables available which can be write protected by removing the VPP or program pin. Use those and you'll have a real archive. What's more, there are no mechanical components, nothing to rust, become misaligned, or wear out. If you build your own archival system you have the option of choosing a different medium. That's what I'm recommending. I say that the following points are under consideration: specified) native formats (e.g. PERQ POS floppy/PERQ PNX floppy/PERQ interchange floppy) interleave order go in here. is in (raw data? logical bytes?) None of these need be an issue if you use another medium, e.g. OTP EPROM. Dick ----- Original Message ----- From: Sellam Ismail &lt;foo(a)siconic.com&gt; To: &lt;classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org&gt; Sent: Tuesday, May 30, 2000 2:20 PM Subject: Re: Defining Disk Image Dump Standard Danger -----