On Mon, 11 Dec 2000, John Tinker wrote:
> I presume that if the culture is not continuous, the chance that any
> subsequent culture will be able to make sense out of our data is
> slight, and perhaps not holding much relevant value anyway, for their
> future.
Very good point. We still haven't figured out the Mayan heiroglyphics,
and if it wasn't for the Rosetta Stone we probably would not yet have
revealed Egyptian heiroglyphics. We still don't and probably won't
ever know what's encoded on Inca Quipus.
> If the culture is continuous, then the data that survives, I think
> will do so by floating above any particular medium that carries it. I
> assume that multiple copies in a variety of media will propagate among
> those who value it.
And I doubt that anyone several millenia from now will be interested in
running our systems from a practical standpoint, making the whole issue of
calendar compliance moot.
Multics, one of the oldest operating systems around, is not installed in
many places anymore. It's almost a dead OS. I would hate to think people
8,000 years from now would be using Windows ME. It's probably safe to
assume that any OS being used that far out (if in fact the concept of an
OS even applies) will have no direct or even indirect ties to what we are
using today.
Sellam Ismail Vintage Computer Festival
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International Man of Intrigue and Danger
http://www.vintage.org
Received on Wed Dec 13 2000 - 18:43:47 GMT