Disasters and Recovery

From: Jerome Fine <jhfine_at_idirect.com>
Date: Mon Jan 18 09:26:58 1999

>Doug wrote:

> On 17 Jan 1999, Eric Smith wrote:
>
> > I wouldn't expect a hard drive to be workable after 100 years of storage,
> > even in an inert gas atmosphere.
>
> Why not? Which parts would degrade? I think most modern systems have
> flash EPROMS, including some disk drive firmware, and that's probably
> going to have problems as you mentioned. Even normal ROMs have problems
> with fusing gates, right? I would think a hard disk and heads should be
> OK if left undisturbed with no oxidizing agents and no strong magentic
> fields.
>
> Put representative types of common media in the capsule, and let the
> people from the year 2100 figure out which survive best. Now, which OS
> should the machine run, Linux or Windows?

Jerome Fine replies:

I have a very serious question. I want to be able to run a PDP-11 Qbus system
until 2036. If you want to know the reason, it is because the DATE word
value turns "negative" (the high order bit is first used) on 01-Jan-2036. While
I realize that this objective is probably ridiculous from most points of view and
it is possible that I will not be around when I am 97 to enjoy watching the
change over in real-time as it actually happens for real, nevertheless, it is
a present goal and plan of mine to take 1985 hardware and software and
have it running 36 additional years from NOW.

Can anyone suggest if my goal of having a BA23 with a PDP-11 inside
(MicroPDP-11) still running in 36 more years is reasonable. And what
might it take to accomplish the goal. In addition, I am more interested in
the software, namely RT-11 (which I intend to gradually convert for
hobby users for V5.3 by the end of the year for the utilities which are
most of interest - I have already done some of V5.4G, but it is not
available for hobby use). The question is which system is more likely
to be able to run in 36 years:
(a) A real MicroPDP-11
(b) Some sort of OS and hardware which can run W95 which is presently
     able to run the E11 PDP-11 emulator by John Wilson?

Sincerely yours,

Jerome Fine
RT-11/TSX-PLUS User/Addict
Received on Mon Jan 18 1999 - 09:26:58 GMT