18 Oct
2002
18 Oct
'02
2:57 p.m.
Hi,
John Foust <jfoust(a)threedee.com> said:
In short, report says "emulation is an
answer". Another relevant
point in the discussion jumped out at me: all the
estimates of
theoretical media longevity (be it CD, CD-R or whatever) have
nothing to do with the longevity of media *in use*, and that
any media in use may tend to fail after only a few years,
and this greatly increases the need for media recopying practices,
and for schemes of metadata to record info about the info,
from digitizing the label on up.
Also I think we need to preserve information on the way computers
were *operated*. There are plenty of people alive now who know how
to toggle in a boot loader, for example, but will this sort of
info be readily available to historians in 50 years time?
One of my other interests is Morse code telegraphy, for which a lot
of original early operational data still exists but I've not seen
much similar material for early computers.
I was reminded of this sort of thing recently when watching a tv
program about "pioneer" re-enactors and seeing a woman struggling
to use a washboard[1]. Having access to old technology is a
different thing to understanding exactly how it was used.
[1] Yes I know how to use one properly :-)
--
Cheers,
Stan Barr stanb(a)dial.pipex.com
The future was never like this!