12 Jan
1998
12 Jan
'98
7:14 p.m.
classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
Subj: Re: Upcoming PBS special on bit rot
I wrote:
I saw an advert in the latest issue of Scientific
American for
an upcoming special about archiving digital data to appear on
PBS. It is supposed to show on the 13th (tomorrow) and alas
OK I have the magazine: there is a Review (not an advert) on page 110
of the Jan 1998 issue of Sci. Am. The television program will be:
"Into the Future: On the Preservation of Knowledge in the Electronic Age"
A film by Terry Sanders, narrated by Robert MacNeil; American Film
Foundation, 1997; Airing January 13 on PBS.
I do not know much about the "American Film Foundation" but MacNeil is
a PBS regular and PBS quite often offers transcipts and tapes for sale
at the end of many (but not all) of their broadcasts. While I have several
CRTs for use as monitors I do not own a television tuner or a VCR. (I also
note that the schedule posted at http://www.kqed.org/ implies that the
main Bay Area PBS broadcaster will not be showing Into the Future.)
Could folks who do manage to see it please post a message regarding whether
there is an address to which one could write to obtain transcripts/tapes?
Thanks.
Peter Prymmer
13 Jan
13 Jan
7:01 p.m.
I caught the PBS special tonight;
For info on a videotape of the program, call 800-472-1500, or write;
American Film Foundation
PO Box 2000
Santa Monica, CA 90406
The program was very interesting. Its main focus was on the social
implications of the storage of data in digital format, and its inherent
vulnerability compared to traditional mediums (stone, paper, etc.).
Most of the emphasis was on how future history will be affected by our
digital world; very little time was spent explaining the technical
issues involved. The program ended in a very open ended manner; no
solution to the problems seems clear.
A couple of interesting points made:
1) When we create information using a digital medium, we seldom preserve
the working copies of our documents, and so the historical record of the
development of significant works is lost. Makes me think of music, and
how much we have learned of classical composers by studying the rough
drafts of their works.
2) People who work in the computer industry generally percieve
themselves as pioneers who are creating a new future, and therefore
throw off the old. As a result, very little emphasis is placed on
storing or cataloging the vast quantities of digital data generated.
This trend is complicated by the fact that storage mediums are
constantly changing.
Grant Zozman
gzozman(a)escape.ca
Peter Prymmer wrote:
classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu
Subj: Re: Upcoming PBS special on bit rot
I wrote:
I saw an advert in the latest issue of Scientific
American for
an upcoming special about archiving digital data to appear on
PBS. It is supposed to show on the 13th (tomorrow) and alas
I do not know much about the "American Film Foundation" but MacNeil is
a PBS regular and PBS quite often offers transcipts and tapes for sale
at the end of many (but not all) of their broadcasts. While I have several
CRTs for use as monitors I do not own a television tuner or a VCR. (I also
note that the schedule posted at http://www.kqed.org/ implies that the
main Bay Area PBS broadcaster will not be showing Into the Future.)
Could folks who do manage to see it please post a message regarding whether
there is an address to which one could write to obtain transcripts/tapes? 
3:11 p.m.
Thank you...
I was able to see that I have it in TV listing, BUT from recent ice
storm knockout, all channels working execpt for one channel, I was
not able to watch PBS that evening. Boo Hiss!
I would like to ask; what's else that have been discussed in that
program?
Good taken on these 2 points through. But we use acidic papers that
self-desructs in few years. I heard a librarian lingo: dead books,
that is given when a book page is easily broken like a briscuit thin
wafer when a corner is folded and creased, corner falls off.
There's Bit rot, alumium oxidizing in 100's of cd's, etc.
Thanks!
Jason D.
I caught the PBS special tonight;
For info on a videotape of the program, call 800-472-1500, or write;
American Film Foundation
PO Box 2000
Santa Monica, CA 90406
The program was very interesting. Its main focus was on the social
implications of the storage of data in digital format, and its inherent
vulnerability compared to traditional mediums (stone, paper, etc.).
Most of the emphasis was on how future history will be affected by our
digital world; very little time was spent explaining the technical
issues involved. The program ended in a very open ended manner; no
solution to the problems seems clear.
A couple of interesting points made:
1) When we create information using a digital medium, we seldom preserve
the working copies of our documents, and so the historical record of the
development of significant works is lost. Makes me think of music, and
how much we have learned of classical composers by studying the rough
drafts of their works.
2) People who work in the computer industry generally percieve
themselves as pioneers who are creating a new future, and therefore
throw off the old. As a result, very little emphasis is placed on
storing or cataloging the vast quantities of digital data generated.
This trend is complicated by the fact that storage mediums are
constantly changing.
Grant Zozman
gzozman(a)escape.ca
9:18 p.m.
;-) Grant Zozman head-scratched, yawned, then typed:
For info on a videotape of the program, call
800-472-1500, or write;
American Film Foundation
PO Box 2000
Santa Monica, CA 90406
Thanks for the info!!! :-)
A couple of interesting points made:
1) When we create information using a digital medium,
we seldom preserve
the working copies of our documents, and so the historical record of the
development of significant works is lost. Makes me think of music, and
how much we have learned of classical composers by studying the rough
drafts of their works.
This is very true. Most programmers don't preserve (at least for very long)
half-completed software -- even if it was never completed. (Well, Bill
Gates and WinBlows anything is an exception!!! ;-)
I don't always save incremental steps of my projects, but I never delete an
unfinished project -- packratism saves me there.
2) People who work in the computer industry generally
percieve
themselves as pioneers who are creating a new future, and therefore
throw off the old. As a result, very little emphasis is placed on
storing or cataloging the vast quantities of digital data generated.
This trend is complicated by the fact that storage mediums are
constantly changing.
Thankfully, I'm using my latest & greatest technology to help *preserve*
the ancient softwares -- I have an older (durned near ready for this list
-- it was built in '89 or '90) MaxOptix Tahiti I 1-Gig Magneto Optical
drive, which is 30-year archival quality storage, and also a CD-ROM burner,
which some of the better rated disks (like my Kodaks) last upwards of 100
years (or so the label says...)
I've archived a great deal of my CoCo, Tandy 200 and Tandy 600 software on
my M.O. until I organize it better, then it will be burned to a CD-ROM.
Oh, if anyone's interested in Tandy 600 software, I have a T600 FTP site here:
ftp://ftp.northernway.net/Tandy600/
The incoming directory in the root FTP directory works, so if you have any
T600 software to add to the FTP site, please upload it & e-mail me about it!
Thanks,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed,
Programmer, NorthernWay | nuclear warhead disarmament should *not*
zmerch(a)northernway.net | be your first career choice.
14 Jan
14 Jan
3:25 a.m.
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4:23 p.m.
Tim Shoppa wrote:
Well, Windows is a very recent development compared to
Microsoft's
entire history :-). I've sold several S-100 based systems with 8"
floppy drives, paper tape readers, etc., to Microsoft employees who
are hoping to make backups of the first ten years of Microsoft
software in the archives there. (No, as far as I can tell this
isn't an official Microsoft program. However, most code-writing
employees are allowed to peruse the archives in their Copious
Free Time.) And Paul Allen just bought a XKL (PDP-10 clone), in
part to recreate their original software development environment - I think!
Well, as I recall, Windows was part of the promise when the Tandy 2000
premiered in August or September of 1983. At the time, Bill had been
in the "formal" computer business less than ten years -- he dropped
out of Harvard (voluntarily) in '74 to write software, while I went
from Georgia Tech into the USAF due to lack of funds to
pay for a much
less expensive school (dropping out of Harvard is a sign of
"entrepreneurship" [sp]), enlisting is a sign of poverty -- a lot of
family money provided Microsoft's starting capital no matter what the
official biographies say -- poor people don't drop out of Harvard).
So, at present, the promise (let alone the "reality" of Windows is more
than 60% of the history of Microsoft at minimum (I forget when the name
"Microsoft" happened).
--
Ward Griffiths
Dylan: How many years must some people exist,
before they're allowed to be free?
WDG3rd: If they "must" exist until they're "allowed",
they'll never be free.
5:56 a.m.
On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Roger Merchberger wrote:
As a general practice, I (mostly) regularly make a zip file of all the
source code for each of my projects with a filename that includes the
date, and this zip file goes into a \backup directory on my PC (I also
make copies to other nodes on the network as well as to floppy). I have a
living system that I have incremental code for going back to 1993;
there's probably over 100 different zip files containing the evolutionary
story of the program. I'm just a natural born archivist (ie. pack-rat)
which is why I never could get myself to delete old copies of source. I
guess I really have a high opinion of myself because I don't think I have
ever deleted any of my own work.
1) When we
create information using a digital medium, we seldom preserve
the working copies of our documents, and so the historical record of the
development of significant works is lost. Makes me think of music, and
how much we have learned of classical composers by studying the rough
drafts of their works.
I don't always save incremental steps of my projects, but I never delete an
unfinished project -- packratism saves me there. Oh, if anyone's interested in Tandy 600 software,
I have a T600 FTP site here:
ftp://ftp.northernway.net/Tandy600/
The incoming directory in the root FTP directory works, so if you have any
T600 software to add to the FTP site, please upload it & e-mail me about it!
Much maligned FTP sites such as Asimov (a site which houses obsolete
commercial Apple ][ software for those not aware) are doing a service that
the anti-piracy zealots often over-look: as long as the underlying
infrastructure is alive (the hard-drive it is stored on, the computer that
hosts the hard drive and the net that links the computer to the rest of
us) the programs are alive. I'd much rather have old programs remain
available, especially so we can continue to enjoy them, rather than have
them die out completely because somebody believes its simply wrong to
harbor "pirated" software.
(Sorry for the rant.)
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
7:59 a.m.
This is very true. Most programmers don't preserve
(at least for very long)
half-completed software -- even if it was never completed. (Well, Bill
Gates and WinBlows anything is an exception!!! ;-)
I really do not buy this point. Just about every software development
company I know of uses a revision control system to keep every bit of
working code that the programmers type out. This includes the hundreds
of tiny revisions that are made between releases, even the "dead-ends".
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net
3:40 p.m.
William Donzelli wrote:
That's _formal, professional_ programmers with systems that support
revision control -- how much of the development for eight-bit micros
was done on systems without such formal structure back in the 70s,
early 80s? -- I'd wager a gagload.
--
Ward Griffiths
Dylan: How many years must some people exist,
before they're allowed to be free?
WDG3rd: If they "must" exist until they're "allowed",
they'll never be free.
This is very true. Most programmers don't
preserve (at least for very long)
half-completed software -- even if it was never completed. (Well, Bill
Gates and WinBlows anything is an exception!!! ;-)
I really do not buy this point. Just about every software development
company I know of uses a revision control system to keep every bit of
working code that the programmers type out. This includes the hundreds
of tiny revisions that are made between releases, even the "dead-ends".
7:16 p.m.
;-) Ward Donald Griffiths III head-scratched, yawned, then typed:
That's _formal, professional_ programmers with systems that support
revision control -- how much of the development for eight-bit micros
was done on systems without such formal structure back in the 70s,
early 80s? -- I'd wager a gagload.
Ward,
That was the point I was making myself -- Sure you can pick up Linux
1.2.13, but can you get a copy of "Merch's Half-Written CoCo3 OS-9 Level2
(Basic09) Multi-Color, Multi-Window Genealogy Program with Built In Help"???
Thankfully, yes, if you give me a week or so to dig it up!
And there's a lot of software for Tandy CoCos (for example -- I'm sure the
problem may be rather widespread) that just seems like it cannot be found.
Whether it was actually bad code, or expensive code, or whatever, there's a
lot of software packages that I've asked around for for quite some time and
cannot turn a copy up to beat the band. (For purchase, archiving or otherwise)
It's a shame -- Looking at FHL's (Frank Hogg's Laboratories) old ads there
was a boatload of software like the Flex OS, 3 or 4 different Basics,
COBOL, Pascal, Macro Assemblers / Disassembles, etc. for that OS alone,
that may have gone *Poof* and may never be seen again.
It would be a shame to lose it like that.
Just MHO,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger Merchberger | If at first you don't succeed,
Programmer, NorthernWay | nuclear warhead disarmament should *not*
zmerch(a)northernway.net | be your first career choice.
William Donzelli wrote:
>
> > This is very true. Most programmers don't preserve (at least for very
long)
half-completed software -- even if it was never
completed. (Well, Bill
Gates and WinBlows anything is an exception!!! ;-)
I really do not buy this point. Just about every software development
company I know of uses a revision control system to keep every bit of
working code that the programmers type out. This includes the hundreds
of tiny revisions that are made between releases, even the "dead-ends".
15 Jan
15 Jan
3:48 p.m.
Roger Merchberger wrote:
Ward Griffiths wrote:
>That's _formal, professional_ programmers with
systems that support
>revision control -- how much of the development for eight-bit micros
>was done on systems without such formal structure back in the 70s,
>early 80s? -- I'd wager a gagload.
That was the point I was making myself -- Sure you can
pick up Linux
1.2.13, but can you get a copy of "Merch's Half-Written CoCo3 OS-9 Level2
(Basic09) Multi-Color, Multi-Window Genealogy Program with Built In Help"???
Thankfully, yes, if you give me a week or so to dig it up!
And there's a lot of software for Tandy CoCos (for example -- I'm sure the
problem may be rather widespread) that just seems like it cannot be found.
Whether it was actually bad code, or expensive code, or whatever, there's a
lot of software packages that I've asked around for for quite some time and
cannot turn a copy up to beat the band. (For purchase, archiving or otherwise)
It's a shame -- Looking at FHL's (Frank Hogg's Laboratories) old ads there
was a boatload of software like the Flex OS, 3 or 4 different Basics,
COBOL, Pascal, Macro Assemblers / Disassembles, etc. for that OS alone,
that may have gone *Poof* and may never be seen again.
It would be a shame to lose it like that.
Yeah, I know. For a lot of that, even the production binaries are in
landfills, let alone the source code belonging to long lost companies.
(I've grabbed everything Roy Soltoff has given Tim Mann to post on
his site for the Mod 1/3/4, it's on more than one Zip disk at present
until I can get it burned into a CD-R at work (that's multiple copies,
it doesn't fill a whole Zip disk yet). I keep hoping the "The Source"
to LS-DOS is made available, since I was too stupid to buy a hardcopy
from Roy years back. And all of my 8" LS-DOS
material was wiped out a
couple of moves back. As Ben Franklin said, "three
removes equal one
fire" at least where posessions are concerned.
--
Ward Griffiths
Dylan: How many years must some people exist,
before they're allowed to be free?
WDG3rd: If they "must" exist until they're "allowed",
they'll never be free.
4:42 p.m.
Ward Donald Griffiths III wrote:
(I've grabbed everything Roy Soltoff has given Tim
Mann to post on
his site for the Mod 1/3/4, it's on more than one Zip disk at present
until I can get it burned into a CD-R at work (that's multiple copies,
it doesn't fill a whole Zip disk yet). I keep hoping the "The Source"
to LS-DOS is made available, since I was too stupid to buy a hardcopy
from Roy years back. And all of my 8" LS-DOS material was wiped out a
couple of moves back. As Ben Franklin said, "three removes equal one
fire" at least where posessions are concerned.
And that's what I get for not checking the site for a couple of weeks.
The source for LS-DOS is now there. It will be added to my archives
this weekend and that probably gives me enough material to at least
half-fill a CD-R, between the Mod 1/3/4 stuff, the CoCo stuff, the
Orchestra-90 stuff and of course the emulators, all presently on
multiple Zip disks. (Might even be room for what CP/M material applies
to the old Tandy's -- if there's extra, I'll just record the lot.)
--
Ward Griffiths
Dylan: How many years must some people exist,
before they're allowed to be free?
WDG3rd: If they "must" exist until they're "allowed",
they'll never be free.
14 Jan
14 Jan
5:45 a.m.
On Wed, 14 Jan 1998, Grant Zozman wrote:
2) People who work in the computer industry generally
percieve
themselves as pioneers who are creating a new future, and therefore
throw off the old. As a result, very little emphasis is placed on
storing or cataloging the vast quantities of digital data generated.
This trend is complicated by the fact that storage mediums are
constantly changing.
That's what we are here for...to preserve the digital past. I've never
thought of the necessity to preserve "vast quantities of digital data"
(what would that be anyway?) but by preserving the hardware, software,
manuals, magazines, sales literature, etc. we are ensuring that this stuff
will be there for future generations to marvel over. The trick is keeping
it intact. More emphasis needs to be placed on preserving the medium.
We've done a decent job of addressing the issue, but society at large
hasn't.
The movie industry a few years back realized they had a problem on their
hands when they realized old movie reels in their vaults were
disintegrating and historic old movies were being lost. There was then an
industry campaign to find ways to preserve these important reels. I think
the computer industry needs to do the same.
Sam Alternate e-mail: dastar(a)siconic.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Historian, Programmer, Musician, Philosopher, Athlete, Writer, Jackass
Coming Soon...Vintage Computer Festival 2.0
See http://www.siconic.com/vcf for details!
9667
days inactive
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12 comments
8 participants
participants (8)
-
dastar＠wco.com -
gram＠cnct.com -
gzozman＠escape.ca -
jpero＠cgo.wave.ca -
pvhp＠forte.com -
shoppa＠alph02.triumf.ca -
william＠ans.net -
zmerch＠northernway.net