And those things are the ones I'm talking
about. We will never lose
the spec for the JFIF file format because the whole world uses it. We
will also never lose (assuming we have it now) the PERQ image file
format because there are people like us around.
I don;t beleive any of us are immortal, and nor are the people who get
our collections when we pass away. It's always possible that at some
point in the not-too-distant future one of said nth-generation inheritors
says 'This pinoe of paper is worthless', and then some file format (or
whateer) is lost forever.
Incidentalyl, I don;t believe the PERQ imaging file format has survived.
However, I think the sources to the image processing software exist, so
it should be possible to work it out.
Yes, there are fringe cases, and some information
WILL be lost. But
do you honestly think it's the same percentage as it was, say, in 1960?
Or even 1980? Not even close. THAT is my point.
>> Even old, proprietary, vendor-specific formats like BMP are trivial to
>> find documentation for.
>
> *Some* are trivial. Some are difficult. And others are impossible, as I
> know from past searches.
However, to get back to the original discuasion, I don't believer thare
has ever been an 'undocumented photographic negative format' :-). A
photographic negatice, whether the base is a glass plate, plastic or
paper, is recognisable for what it is, and the methods of producing a
useable image are pretty obvious in all cases.
-tony