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Amazing that how much basic knowledge society is leaving behind - it never is needed for the common guy and so we never know it. To that extent this is a huge f

Amazing that how much basic knowledge society is leaving behind - it never is needed for the common guy and so we never know it. To that extent this is a huge first step in preserving those "long forgotten" bits. Ironically this relies on world's communication systems being intact and no one person knows how it all works end to end! Someone should do a similar archive for world's commonly used communication systems. I have frequently wondered if telecommunications systems, Internet systems and Satellites all break and have to be rebuilt from scratch - how many people know how it all works end-to-end? To that effect, those who know the parts should collaborate to consolidate that knowledge.

InclinedPlane 16y ago
I think the intent is for it to be downloaded.
eneveu 16y ago
I've often wondered how long it would take us to rebuild computers from scratch, in case of a world catastrophe (nuclear war, zombie invasion...). Of course, we would have other, more urgent needs (food, shelter, healthcare...), but it's an interesting thought experiment. I use a computer every day, but I wouldn't know where to start to rebuild one from scratch. There are books like "Linux from scratch", but it is far from enough: we would need to "re-invent" electricity, silicon, assembly languages, operating systems... With the division of labour, nobody has the knowledge to build all this. I think it would take centuries to re-create what we have now. The cool thing is, we wouldn't need to care about backward compatibility / legacy apps, and we could skip C++ and immediately standardize on Lisp ;)
- tomjen3 16y ago
  It wouldn't take centuries and the division of labor isn't worse than that you don't need more than 6 or so people with the right skills to build the equivalent of a 1985 computer. The problem is that they would get killed once the security of the world (police and the military) disappear and humanity decent into chaos.

InclinedPlane 16y ago

I think the intent is for it to be downloaded.

eneveu 16y ago

I've often wondered how long it would take us to rebuild computers from scratch, in case of a world catastrophe (nuclear war, zombie invasion...). Of course, we would have other, more urgent needs (food, shelter, healthcare...), but it's an interesting thought experiment. I use a computer every day, but I wouldn't know where to start to rebuild one from scratch. There are books like "Linux from scratch", but it is far from enough: we would need to "re-invent" electricity, silicon, assembly languages, operating systems... With the division of labour, nobody has the knowledge to build all this. I think it would take centuries to re-create what we have now. The cool thing is, we wouldn't need to care about backward compatibility / legacy apps, and we could skip C++ and immediately standardize on Lisp ;)

tomjen3 16y ago
It wouldn't take centuries and the division of labor isn't worse than that you don't need more than 6 or so people with the right skills to build the equivalent of a 1985 computer. The problem is that they would get killed once the security of the world (police and the military) disappear and humanity decent into chaos.