OT: Archiving data/video/movies/photos/oral history

From: William Donzelli <aw288_at_osfn.org>
Date: Sun Jun 4 15:48:11 2000

> That's not to say the odds are as good of them working as WWII surplus
> still working. A radio from that era was a far more durable piece of
> equipment (aside from the chance of tube (valve) breakage from
> improper handling and capacitors, or condensors as they called them
> back then, going bad) than a CD-ROM drive with all it's
> miniaturization and parts that probably won't handle years and years
> of thermal fluctuations very well and thin plastic parts that may
> become brittle and break, etc.

?????

While the military radios back then certainly were built tobe more
durable, they do not age well at all.Simply put, materials just were not
very good back then - ask any chemist or metalurgist (sp?). The plastics
are horrid, the rubbers are just as bad. Paper has a huge acid content,
and metals often are laced with impurities.

In contrast, modern plastics and rubbers are incredibly stable, the acid
content in paper has gone down, and metals are more pure. Many of these
changes can be traced back to the space industry, so these meterials
have quite a few years of "real world testing" under their belt, and are
coming out champs.

William Donzelli
aw288_at_osfn.org
Received on Sun Jun 04 2000 - 15:48:11 BST