Let's develop an open-source media archive standard

From: Dwight K. Elvey <dwight.elvey_at_amd.com>
Date: Tue Aug 10 20:02:32 2004

Hi
 There is a format that has been used with the H8/89
hard sectored disk called SVD. I like it in some ways but not
in others.

Things I like:
 It is in a human readable format
 Sectors are separated by white space and/or comments
 comments can be added
Things I don't like:
 Format is octal ( I prefer hexadecimal )
 Header contains various bit of information that are not decoded
  in a human readable form( still encoded as octal values ).

 I use a straight binary image file to transfer disk images to
my H8's and H89. Converting the SVD format to one that I can use
is trivial.
 The issue of reading the actual file from an image and placing
that into a file is another issue. Each disk system uses a
different directory structure and allocation method. How this
could be simply encoded into the image files is more than I'd like to
think about unless one would just settle for a textual description
in the comment space.
 As an example, the H8/89 hard sectored disk have a volume number
encoded in the header field ( that isn't part of the data ). The
directory and allocation tables are pointed to by specific locations
on track 0. They are not at specific locations.
 Other issues that might be a problem are things like the actual encoding
methods used. Not all data is in nice 8 bit chunks ( my Nicolet does
20 bit chunks ). Inter leaving is usually not a great issue since
it often only effects speed but it might be important.
Dwight


>From: "Paul Koning" <pkoning_at_equallogic.com>
>
>>>>>> "Vintage" == Vintage Computer Festival <vcf_at_siconic.com> writes:
>
> Vintage> Ok, instead of all the unproductive bickering over semantics
> Vintage> (most of which is illogical...come on, admit it) I'd rather
> Vintage> we actually discuss developing further an open-source,
> Vintage> public domain, free (in every sense of the word) standard
> Vintage> for archiving data media of all types (magentic, paper, or
> Vintage> otherwise).
>
> Vintage> This is basically going to be a continuation of what we've
> Vintage> already discussed on the list, and what Hans and I have
> Vintage> discussed in private.
>
> Vintage> First, let's start with the goals.
>
>When you say "archiving" what span of time do you mean? A year? A
>decade? A century? Longer?
>
>You will get completely different answers depending on how you answer
>that question.
>
>(See also www.longnow.org)
>
> paul
>
>
Received on Tue Aug 10 2004 - 20:02:32 BST