100 year archiving

From: John Lawson <jpl15_at_netcom.com>
Date: Sun Jan 17 22:03:23 1999

  Without going into a lot of extraneous detail.. I am on several
comittees and groups etc., involved in the restoration and
preservation of films, sound tracks, and video media.

  All the high-techsolutions notwithstanding, one of the long-term
archival methods is still an optically-recorded signal on stablized
mylar or estar-based photographic film of some kind. With the
proper care in processing the film life is forcast to be in excess
of 500 years, and all that is required to 'read' it is a light
source and a photo-responsive device.. plus the algorithms to
recover the intelligence from the data stream. In the case of
purely analog info, an audio amp, speaker, (and knowing the
language) are the only recovery criteria. Data is a little more
complex, but hopefully in 2100 somebody will be able to translate.

 Unless we've managed to reduce ourselves to cave-man status once again.

                     ;}


   Cheerz

John
Received on Sun Jan 17 1999 - 22:03:23 GMT