Olympus-OM
[Top] [All Lists]

Re: [OM] Archivally safe?

Subject: Re: [OM] Archivally safe?
From: frieder.faig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Thu, 21 Dec 2000 14:04:17 +0100
On Tue, Dec 19, 2000 at 11:18:10AM +0000, Alasdair Mackintosh wrote:
> "John A. Lind" <jlind@xxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>
> Digital information has the potential to last forever. Analogue media will
> fade or distort with the passage of time, and any attempt to copy them
> always introduces distortions and noise. By contrast, a zero and a one can
> be copied perfectly.
> 


Now,IMHO is this the theory of storing Bits and Bytes, as announced by
e.g. Andy Groove and other computer representaives (*1). 
Now my  already here quoted favourite computer magazine just
publlished a review of the durability of digital archivated data two issues ago.

The occasion was, that the University of York, noticed that already 50f their 
disks
with archeological data from 1991~98 was lost.  The NASA  also already lost 
10~200f the
data from the Vikin mission to mars from 1976. They wrote, that the historians 
expect
a gap of information from the begining of the digital ara until the development 
of realiable 
long time storage for digital data.  They are very concerned, that the period 
for 
first generation of digital data is running.  Their conclusion is that the 
technology for save
data storage would be developable today, but there is not enough awareness for 
the problem.

There are different problems for the live of Bits & Bytes:
 * Aging of the data-carrier (wear, hydrolysis, corrosion, UV,... 
        ....environment impact, magnetic concerns) 
 * Readability of ancient data-format (Encoding, availability of devices)
 * Readability of ancient file Format !
 * Errors caused by the necessary copying to a fresh carrier.
 * Problem of selecting the worthwile data.

Historians are concerned when they compare their time horizoon for keeping data 
to the experience with digital storage. Another problem is that you need active 
work to preseve your digital data, forgotten data is lost data. No chance for 
your
grandchildren to find your ancient forgotten letters, telling them about your 
fascinating
correspondence about OM-stuff, the first meaningful usage of the Internet <G>. 
Adspects of archiving data are: 
 * Selection of material
 * Carefully select the format for saving. 
   The more widly  the storage is used, the better the chance for future, take 
standarts!
 * No compression, no encryption
 * Take care for storage environment, no humitity, take care of chemicals
 * It is necessary to copy the data on fresh material from time to time.
 
The article gave some values for live time of data-carriers:
 
 CD-ROM         5 ~ 200 year`s 
 Newspaper      10 ~ 20 y.
 VHS-Tape       10 ~ 30 y.
 digital tape   10 ~ 30 y.
magnetic tape 10 ~30 y.
 microfilm      10 ~500 y.
 Kodacrome slides       100 y.
 acid free paper        100 ~500 y.
HD-Rosetta ???? 1000+ y.
 egypt-stone-scripture  2000+ y.
 
Hmmm, I´ve to write them: The datas for MO-disc`s are missing 
(Olympus-content!).
 IMHO they are one of the better chioices for long term storage, But you 
nothing for sure until now...

sorry for the long post, 

Links that came with the article:
        www.longnow.org
        info.wgbh.org/upf
        www.archive.org

regards,
Frieder Faig


(*1) Annotation:

This reminds me to a TV report about the PHOTOKINA 2000 in German TV:
After a lot of praise of advantage of digital photography, the reporter asked 
about
disadvantages of this new technology. All three repesentative answered with the 
same
words(!): "Mir fallen keine ein". = "I can`t remember anone"

Tss, Tss....

< This message was delivered via the Olympus Mailing List >
< For questions, mailto:owner-olympus@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx >
< Web Page: http://Zuiko.sls.bc.ca/swright/olympuslist.html >


<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>
Sponsored by Tako
Impressum | Datenschutz