Archival storage

I know aperture cards have a long life. In one of my previous work lives, 1973-1975, I copied X-ray film from 14" X 17" film to aperture cards. They were the size of computer punch cards and had a line of text typed along the top. There was a 1" X 1" film embedded in the card. We were the beta test site for Kodak for a medical image archive based on them. Retnar was the product name I think. I tried scanning them with a Vidicon camera attached to the bioengineering lab's PDP-11/20. The camera was only 256 X 256 by 8 bits per pixel, not enough resolution to recover an image. The display on the system was a RAMTEK display with 256 X 256 by 8 bits, 3 bits red, 3 bits green and 2 bits blue. I think the display system was about $50K. I still have some intact 30 years later. I am also scanning old family slides that are at least 40 years old. I think the storage conditions are the key to good longevity of film. Cool and dry is essential. I'm partial to film. My family has 16mm and 8mm film originals of family events from the last 40 years, copies on VHS tape and copies on VCD. The magnetic tape is beginning to fade. The VCD's are copies of the VHS version. The film is a pain to thread into the projector but it's still great quality. I've heard that pen on paper is very good because the ink is embedded/absorbed into the paper. This is unlike a laser printer where the plastic toner is melted onto the surface of the paper. Maybe an archival quality ink on a pen plotter on vellum is what you want. I think that's what the local plat and land documents are created on. Mike