19 May
2005
19 May
'05
2:09 p.m.
Antonio Carlini wrote:
Jim Leonard wrote:
What's CP/M? Will that be less dead in 100 years than Algol is today?
Which means they can run on any machine with a C
compiler. So
what's with all the paranoia? Just use whatever works as long
as more than one major platform can extract it.
What's C? Will that be less dead in 100 years than Algol is today?
I know Algol's not completely dead - but it's
certainly declining ...
How long before C is no longer available everywhere? How long before
your source no longer compiles without significant effort?
So we should store the images using a sub-atomic scan of the disks,
so that it can be reproduced back to an identical copy.
Did people 500 years ago archive information using easily recognizable
pictographs because people 500 years from then (today) will have lost all
capability to read?
Do you believe future people will be that much stupider than people
are today, and that all information about computers will have been
totally lost?
If they lose and then rediscover computers, then they may have to go
through the same process that we have had to go through to read
Egyption writings.
Or, they may think it is just too primitive to care about.
I have no problems with including a ready made
unarchiver, but you
also must include a textual specification of the archive format.
After another fifty years have passed and the state of the art has
advanced sufficiently, you can upgrade the archive to include a
povably correct specification :-)
Make the archive useful to us, now. Let people 500 years from now
figure it out for themselves.