Google on hard drive failures

On Fri, 2007-02-23 at 12:19 -0800, Hex Star wrote: Yes, they last MUCH longer. If they started with gold foil, a lifetime of many centuries would not be out of the question. The problem is the massive expense of setting up the press to make them. Once it is set up, pressing a million is not much money. But, if the setup is for ONE of them.... Hoo, boy. I don't have a price -- I just know *I* can't afford it. Now, it might well be possible to set up a DVD (written on a home-type machine) that had *ALL* the known software of a class, or several classes, of machinery on it... Such as a CP/M DVD, a VMS DVD, etc. LOTS of software fits in 8 gigabytes... Probably, there could be a mix -- One DVD that is all known TRS-DOS and CP/M software, or whatever. But, it would take quite a few buyers to bring the price down to reasonable levels. It's the same situation as the one that annoyed a friend of mine. We were discussing personal computing, and the subject of when it started came up. Finally, he said, "Hey, there was personal computing in the 1950s, as long as your family name was Rockefeller." Back when itsy-bitsy personal computers cost as much as a new car, not many people could be that personal with them... Peace, Warren E. Wolfe wizard at voyager.net