16 May
2004
16 May
'04
12:59 a.m.
----- Original Message -----
From: "William Donzelli" <aw288(a)osfn.org>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Sunday, May 16, 2004 12:35 AM
Subject: Re: opinions on very long term storage and references from Google
search
If your thinking of having printouts that last your lifetime I would think a
laser printer using standard photocopying paper (has a smooth side to it
that the toner sticks on) would work just fine. Best method of saving
manuals is to digitize them and transfer them to new media every 10-20yrs in
a format that can be read at the time of transfer. In a hundred years the
world will be speaking and writing Hindu or whatever dialect is popular in
China and India so anything you save wont be appreciated by anybody but the
mandarin Indiana Jones type archeologist anyway.
Does any type
of archival-quality toner exist? After a few years, the
pages from some laser printouts to stick together and some of the
toner comes off onto the pages opposite, so this sort of defeats
using acid-free paper.
The problem is that the toner never penetrates the fibres of the
paper, as inks do. The actual toner material is apparently very stable,
but because of the bonding problem, no right minded archivest can
recommend toner based printouts.
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org