3 ms·

I don't know why he doesn't just say it directly, but all media has an expiration date. It was only intended to last so long (because any longer was too expens

I don't know why he doesn't just say it directly, but all media has an expiration date. It was only intended to last so long (because any longer was too expensive) and floppies are not all past their expiration dates. This is a good reminder that 'backups' doesn't mean 'put it on a disk and forget it'. You have to maintain them.

michael_dorfman 15y ago
all media has an expiration date Yeah, but that's a pretty recent view. I mean, we're still digging up clay cuneiform tablets faster than we can translate them all...
- robin_reala 15y ago
  Interestingly the original Unix source was recovered from paper rather than tape.
- ionfish 15y ago
  Baked clay tablets, like stone inscriptions, are exceptional. The records of the past are largely gone. Unbaked clay tablets tend to simply disintegrate. Those at Knossos and Ninevah were baked by fires that destroyed the buildings in which they were housed. Mycenean tablets appear to have been reused each year, so the 'expiration date' in that case was man-made rather than imposed by the material. Papyri have also survived more by good fortune than by design, being preserved in tombs and rubbish heaps. They lay undisturbed in an environment where the temperature and moisture content of the air remained stable over time, in a range conducive to the survival of the material.
textfiles 15y ago
The point of the post wasn't to talk about the general aspects of media, but to specifically and directly make a call to action for a subset of all media that I and a team of volunteers can rescue data from.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- nocman 15y ago
  In the article you say "(As an aside, the conclusions of this study are wrong, although I appreciate the effort.)", giving a link to an article entitled "Floppy Disk Migration Pilot Project: Phase One Report". ( http://www.library.illinois.edu/prescons/pdf/Floppy_Disk_Migration_Pilot_Project.pdf http://www.library.illinois.edu/prescons/pdf/Floppy_Disk_Mig...). But you don't say why the conclusions are wrong. You don't give any data to back up your assertion. I'm not arguing for or against the conclusions of the article, but it would be nice to have something more than a "because I say so". I realize it is just an "aside", but it would be a lot more meaningful if you had a link to at least one other source that rebuts the conclusions of the article.

michael_dorfman 15y ago

all media has an expiration date Yeah, but that's a pretty recent view. I mean, we're still digging up clay cuneiform tablets faster than we can translate them all...

robin_reala 15y ago
Interestingly the original Unix source was recovered from paper rather than tape.
ionfish 15y ago
Baked clay tablets, like stone inscriptions, are exceptional. The records of the past are largely gone. Unbaked clay tablets tend to simply disintegrate. Those at Knossos and Ninevah were baked by fires that destroyed the buildings in which they were housed. Mycenean tablets appear to have been reused each year, so the 'expiration date' in that case was man-made rather than imposed by the material. Papyri have also survived more by good fortune than by design, being preserved in tombs and rubbish heaps. They lay undisturbed in an environment where the temperature and moisture content of the air remained stable over time, in a range conducive to the survival of the material.

textfiles 15y ago

The point of the post wasn't to talk about the general aspects of media, but to specifically and directly make a call to action for a subset of all media that I and a team of volunteers can rescue data from.

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
nocman 15y ago
In the article you say "(As an aside, the conclusions of this study are wrong, although I appreciate the effort.)", giving a link to an article entitled "Floppy Disk Migration Pilot Project: Phase One Report". ( http://www.library.illinois.edu/prescons/pdf/Floppy_Disk_Migration_Pilot_Project.pdf http://www.library.illinois.edu/prescons/pdf/Floppy_Disk_Mig...). But you don't say why the conclusions are wrong. You don't give any data to back up your assertion. I'm not arguing for or against the conclusions of the article, but it would be nice to have something more than a "because I say so". I realize it is just an "aside", but it would be a lot more meaningful if you had a link to at least one other source that rebuts the conclusions of the article.