4 ms·

A very good question. Some time ago I've heard that big libraries and archives print digital photos back to film because it is much more durable than the modern

by dorfuss 13y ago

A very good question. Some time ago I've heard that big libraries and archives print digital photos back to film because it is much more durable than the modern media and the picture really exists and is visible. A different problems I have with text files which would seem much less of an issue. But I have already thousands of e-mails and text, how can I be sure that in 40-80 years there will be machines or programs that could read my old text files.

pwg 13y ago
> But I have already thousands of e-mails and text, how can I be sure that in 40-80 years there will be machines or programs that could read my old text files. You actually have a much better probability of being able to at least view the contents of the text files on a machine 40-80 years in the future than if the same data was in some other format. I.e., try to find a way today to read an old WordStar, WordPerfect, or XYWrite file from the dos world. And those programs are not yet 40 years old... Yet a same age ASCII text file (assuming you migrated it off of floppies along the way) is still readable.
- jasomill 13y ago
  Assuming you can read the media, it's actually not hard to read old DOS word processing formats on modern PCs: both software and services exist to convert them, and, worst-case scenario, you can still run old DOS word processing software on modern PCs through virtualization and emulation. Wang WPS files on open-reel tape, say, or Locoscript files on Amstrad 3" (not 3.5"!) floppies, are admittedly much harder to convert, but by no means impossible. Worst-case scenario, firms exist that'll convert things like this as a service.
jasomill 13y ago
"Some time ago," these libraries and archives probably already had staff familiar with film preservation, and processes in place to do so. While preserving digital photos is an inherently easier task than preserving negatives and prints — neither of which can be stored, duplicated, or even viewed without at least some amount of degradation — the skills and processes required are very different. Professional archivists aren't simply going to stick digital media in a climate-controlled vault and assume it'll be accessible in 80 years, and, if you care about your photos, neither should you! Putting (perfectly tractable) media preservation issues aside, most common lossy and lossless image formats have open, published specs for both image data and metadata, so I wouldn't anticipate problems reading these in the future — can you honestly imagine a non-apocalyptic future where JPEG, TIFF, or PNG files won't be viewable in 80 years? Unprocessed, proprietary camera raw files pose more interesting problems, of course.

by dorfuss 13y ago

pwg 13y ago

> But I have already thousands of e-mails and text, how can I be sure that in 40-80 years there will be machines or programs that could read my old text files. You actually have a much better probability of being able to at least view the contents of the text files on a machine 40-80 years in the future than if the same data was in some other format. I.e., try to find a way today to read an old WordStar, WordPerfect, or XYWrite file from the dos world. And those programs are not yet 40 years old... Yet a same age ASCII text file (assuming you migrated it off of floppies along the way) is still readable.

jasomill 13y ago
Assuming you can read the media, it's actually not hard to read old DOS word processing formats on modern PCs: both software and services exist to convert them, and, worst-case scenario, you can still run old DOS word processing software on modern PCs through virtualization and emulation. Wang WPS files on open-reel tape, say, or Locoscript files on Amstrad 3" (not 3.5"!) floppies, are admittedly much harder to convert, but by no means impossible. Worst-case scenario, firms exist that'll convert things like this as a service.

jasomill 13y ago

"Some time ago," these libraries and archives probably already had staff familiar with film preservation, and processes in place to do so. While preserving digital photos is an inherently easier task than preserving negatives and prints — neither of which can be stored, duplicated, or even viewed without at least some amount of degradation — the skills and processes required are very different. Professional archivists aren't simply going to stick digital media in a climate-controlled vault and assume it'll be accessible in 80 years, and, if you care about your photos, neither should you! Putting (perfectly tractable) media preservation issues aside, most common lossy and lossless image formats have open, published specs for both image data and metadata, so I wouldn't anticipate problems reading these in the future — can you honestly imagine a non-apocalyptic future where JPEG, TIFF, or PNG files won't be viewable in 80 years? Unprocessed, proprietary camera raw files pose more interesting problems, of course.