28 Jul
1999
28 Jul
'99
10:08 a.m.
> Count me in as a confirmed purchaser of the
SigTape CDRs..
This brings up a good point. Tim, are you talking
CD-ROMs or CD-Rs? I for
one would prefer a CD-ROM, as thier life span is considerably longer.
However, CD-R might be more practical considering the low demand for
something such as this (at least I think the demand would be low, well
obviously not in this mailing list though).
I would *like* to know there's enough demand out there to get some
real CD-ROM's pressed. It looks like this becomes feasible with a
quantity of 500 of each. If someone knows of low-volume CD pressers
that would be suitable for this project, I'd appreciate getting
clued-in.
Barring that, gold CD-R's look to be the next best option.
--
Tim Shoppa Email: shoppa(a)trailing-edge.com
Trailing Edge Technology WWW: http://www.trailing-edge.com/
7328 Bradley Blvd Voice: 301-767-5917
Bethesda, MD, USA 20817 Fax: 301-767-5927
28 Jul
28 Jul
10:37 a.m.
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2:07 p.m.
Upon the date 06:08 PM 7/28/99 -0400, CLASSICCMP(a)trailing-edge.com said
something like:
Hmmm, 500? . . . not with this group. There's maybe 30 to 50 of us
subscribers who do DEC and would buy them (I'm wildly guessing at the #
based on how many seem to get involved w/PDP-11 discussions here plus some
lurkers tossed-in.). There are other folks who may be interested but not on
the list because they either choose not join or just don't know of it.
Would you think it would be worthwhile to see how the non-listmembers
reading the PDP-related newsgroups would react to the availability of the
CD's you propose? This could give you a better feel if the 500-mark could
be reached. I like the idea of longevity :)
> Count me
in as a confirmed purchaser of the SigTape CDRs..
This brings up a good point. Tim, are you talking
CD-ROMs or CD-Rs? I for
one would prefer a CD-ROM, as thier life span is considerably longer.
However, CD-R might be more practical considering the low demand for
something such as this (at least I think the demand would be low, well
obviously not in this mailing list though).
I would *like* to know there's enough demand out there to get some
real CD-ROM's pressed. It looks like this becomes feasible with a
quantity of 500 of each. If someone knows of low-volume CD pressers
that would be suitable for this project, I'd appreciate getting
clued-in.
Barring that, gold CD-R's look to be the next best option.
Regards, Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt(a)netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
Check our redesigned website!
URL: http://www.antiquewireless.org/
2:31 p.m.
Hmmm, 500? . . . not with this group. There's
maybe 30 to 50 of us
subscribers who do DEC and would buy them (I'm wildly guessing at the #
based on how many seem to get involved w/PDP-11 discussions here plus some
lurkers tossed-in.). There are other folks who may be interested but not on
the list because they either choose not join or just don't know of it.
There is actually a rather large number of serious computer collectors
that are not on this list (I won't go into the reasons - we are not due
for another flamewar for a while. Oops, that's one of the reasons.).
You may not have to think about trying to sell every last CD pressed. A
few years back, a friend had 500 CDs made (the pressing of the disks,
jewel cases, and full color insert/back) for something like $1100. The
price may have gone down since then. At $15/each, it would not take long
to get back the original investment.
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org
29 Jul
29 Jul
3:25 a.m.
At 10:31 PM 7/28/99 -0400, William Donzelli wrote:
You may not have to think about trying to sell every last CD pressed. A
few years back, a friend had 500 CDs made (the pressing of the disks,
jewel cases, and full color insert/back) for something like $1100. The
price may have gone down since then. At $15/each, it would not take long
to get back the original investment.
It's that kind of thinking that leads to stock rooms full of
CDs you can't sell fast enough, like the one I had in the basement
until I unloaded them at a price that barely covered the cost
of my investment.
For heaven's sake, CD-Rs make much more sense. If your CD-R fails,
get another copy from Tim or someone else.
- John
4:20 a.m.
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4:39 a.m.
At 09:20 AM 7/29/99 -0700, you wrote:
I did some research on media lifespans a couple years back, and the best
source of info I found was a government study. According to it the lifespan
of a CD-R is 10 years, IIRC.
Glass-mastered, pressed CDROMs can rot, too. Environmental conditions
make a big difference, as can the characteristics of plastics, and who
knows what's being used in $1200 runs at discount CD pressing shops.
If something is important to you, take care of it, and try to read it
now and then, and upgrade the media as time marches on. Careful what
you say, or you're going to inflame those on the list who believe they
need to archive the EEPROMs of their machines on baked clay tablets
because paper tape stretches when wet, and even Mylar burns.
- John
4:50 a.m.
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4:53 a.m.
At 09:50 AM 7/29/99 -0700, Zane H. Healy wrote:
Hmmm, I find it hard to believe that baked clay tablets are durable enough.
I was thinking more solid gold tablets, and then convincing the Government
to store the resulting data in Fort Knox.
There are WWI-era gold Hollerith cards mentioned in Cryptonomicon, no?
- John
5:58 a.m.
New subject: OT? Ancient software archive systems (was Re: PDP CDROMS)
Media lifespan...
After just 10,000 or so days on earth, I've learned not to *rely* on any
media and to backup anything that is hard to replace. My kids have
scratched CD's in a nanosecond, I've dropped floppies and accidentally
rolled over them with the chair trying to retrieve them, whatever. I
am just really bad with stuff like that, almost never seeing the
natural end of the media's lifespan. So I think Zane is right, storage is
just too cheap and the technology is too available not to invest a little
in safeguarding as much of the software as you can.
I've got around 6 gigs of "classic" computer-related data archived, with
everything from applications, emulators, and schematics to scanned
magazines and video files of 80's TV commercials. Considering that an 18
gig EIDE drive is under $200 and Linux (free) has built-in RAID support,
you can absolutely guarantee the safety of your data for almost nothing. I
also picked up a Sony 8gig tape drive for $250 a while back and keep a
backup set in a drawer in my office. Ala Jessee Jackson, the nicest thing
about a Linux setup is the Connectivity Flexibility, where you can
transfer between almost any machines with combinations of serial
connections, networking, and writing native-format disks/tapes with the
gaggle of free utilities available. Heaven.
As far as finding a case, combing the scrapyards for a stripped Mini or PC
server chassis is a great source. A little creative cutting and
metal-epoxy work and you can mate a cheap ATX case to it (for the card
cage) without much hassle...and have all the room you ever dreamed of. The
old AST server case I scrounged has enough room for all of the tubing/etc
of my cooling system as well as an 8-slot scsi backplane with sliding
drive trays! Almost free!
Just my 119 Rubles,
Aaron
On Thu, 29 Jul 1999, Zane H. Healy wrote:
Considering how amazingly cheap EIDE hard drives are
getting, I'm
thinking about building an archive server with some form of RAID using EIDE
disks for my Home network at the moment. From what I hear there is an
add-on board that will let you have a max of 8 EIDE hard drives on a PC, and
apparently Maxtor now has 27.2Gb EIDE HD's that you can find for under $300.
Since Linux supports kernel based RAID, it should be fairly easy to set up a
simple disk mirroring system, on something cheap like a Celeron system. The
hardest part might be finding a big enough case :^)
Zane
7:47 a.m.
That's something I was thinking about. I've been looking into
building a new system at home and checked into the ABIT BP6
motherboard. It's a dual Celeron board with 4 EIDE connectors
built in. Supports 4 UDMA-33 and 4 UDMA-33/66 devices at the
same time. IBM has a super fast 22 gig EIDE drive for $300 (boy
they are fast, we have some at work now). Load Linux on it and
have one heck of a cheap server. Currently I still keep copies of all
my old software on CDR, tape and disk. Just want to make sure.
On 29 Jul 99, at 9:20, Zane H. Healy wrote:
Considering how amazingly cheap EIDE hard drives are
getting, I'm
thinking about building an archive server with some form of RAID using
EIDE disks for my Home network at the moment. From what I hear there is
an add-on board that will let you have a max of 8 EIDE hard drives on a
PC, and apparently Maxtor now has 27.2Gb EIDE HD's that you can find for
under $300. Since Linux supports kernel based RAID, it should be fairly
easy to set up a simple disk mirroring system, on something cheap like a
Celeron system. The hardest part might be finding a big enough case :^)
-----
David Williams - Computer Packrat
dlw(a)trailingedge.com
http://www.trailingedge.com
8:36 a.m.
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4:05 a.m.
It's that kind of thinking that leads to stock
rooms full of
CDs you can't sell fast enough, like the one I had in the basement
until I unloaded them at a price that barely covered the cost
of my investment.
It really does not matter if there is a surplus of CD-ROMs (I, for one,
think that eventually all of them could sell - it just may take a
while!). As long as it makes economic sense...
William Donzelli
aw288(a)osfn.org
9059
days inactive
9060
days old
13 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
af-list＠lafleur.wfi-inc.com -
aw288＠osfn.org -
cfandt＠netsync.net -
CLASSICCMP＠trailing-edge.com -
dlw＠trailingedge.com -
healyzh＠aracnet.com -
jfoust＠threedee.com -
mikeford＠netwiz.net