31 May
2000
31 May
'00
6:46 a.m.
Mylar punched
paper tape has a VERY long lifetime and is even human
readable (well sorta ;)).
Everytime this talk of using punched mylar cards to archive data comes up
I have to laugh. First of all, do we all realize how many cards it would take to store even one floppy disk? And then, where
are all these cards
going to go? Where does one store millions of punched cards? Who's going
to pay for this?
First, whose twisting your arm? It was a thought, and only that!
keep looking for new mediums to transfer the archive
to. The best medium
I see now is redudndant living systems, and what I mean by that is having
I already do that.
Of course the archives could also be dumped to CD ROM
every N years.
Then, when something comes along to imrpove on CD technology, we move to
that.
Just like mag tape only maybe less often.
Anyway, it's a matter of feasibility and
practicality. Suggesting
solutions like punched cards makes no sense when you're dealing with
gigabytes of data.
Again reread tape is not cards! the information density of tape FYI is
higher than cards and laks the "ordering" problem if dropped. Also no
rule says 10 punches per linear inch is required, you could go 16 wide
and 20 per inch upping the denity fourfold. Or better yet optically
print the image (density limits already mentiond are 100-1000x).
Dream a bit, maybe a cheap idea will emerge.
Allison