Emulators of Classic Computers

From: Tom Jennings <tomj_at_wps.com>
Date: Wed Jan 14 19:44:45 2004

On Wed, 2004-01-14 at 13:20, Al Kossow wrote:
> even if we save the raw files, how will we view them in 50 (or
> even 5) years?
>
> --
>
> The short answer:
>
> You won't


eggzactly.

It's probably not a cooincidence that the only examples of my personal
programming work that still exist from the 1970's are two or three
printouts in a 3-ring binder.

Fiche is not glamourous, but very robust and in no way a dead medium.
I'm far from expert, but it appears to be oriented towards small media
sizes, but I know there are things like aperture cards for C & D sized
drawings etc.

It's really a cultural failing, besides the general and obvious
obliviousness to history (which nuts like us know about intimately) but
the technocratic NEW GOOD, OLD BAD tends to induce the view that things
like microfiche are old, and therefore automatically obsolete.

It's the only 500-year media we have, besides paper (but let's not get
into a 'what's media' discussion).

I have a (sleeping) art project involving fiche. If you search around,
you'll find that there are places that will produce fiche for you for
pretty cheap. Basically you send them file(s) and they output on a
device that emulates a printer (I guess). THere are problems with
character mappings etc at the place I talked to that was cheapest. I'm
sure this is solvable.


tomj
Received on Wed Jan 14 2004 - 19:44:45 GMT

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