12 Aug
2004
12 Aug
'04
9:34 a.m.
On Mon, 2004-08-09 at 14:46, Tony Duell wrote:
So what happens in 20 years time when you want to
recover the data from
one of these Teledisk archive files, and when there are no suitable PCs
left running (PC hardware is notoriosuly badly docuemnted and therefore
difficult to maintain -- have you ever seen official schematics to a PC
later than a 286?). Sorry, but if I want to achive data, I want the
format of the archive to be fully documented so that I can recover it on
whatever machine I have access to.
I'd go further than Tony and say I'd want the meanings of the symbols
used in the data stream to be defined. For example, everything converted
to an ASCII character stream. You'll stop laughing when you need to
recreate antique data JUST ONCE from some wacko
futuristic-scheme-of-the-past and find the data stored in a stupid,
inane, and trivial-to-decode format. File size is not a valid objection.