There are several flaws in this type of an approach. If you used 8-track tapes you remember they were a technical disaster. The tape was continuous and was pulled from the center of the coil. They jammed and broke. The heads on the players moved up and down and got out of alignment. Audio cassettes were a much better approach and technology, and guess what, they are still around!
These guys try to say that the technical powers will eliminate what you are using now. What about market forces, user base, and technical improvement? 5-1/2" floppies? How about 8" floppies? That's what I used to have. But if you were still depending on a computer that uses 8" floppies you would be out of business. All business data has long been transferred to newer media. In the future we will just transfer our CDs over to "X"Ds (or whatever they will be called then) Each "X"D will hold 1 TB or more of data and the transfer speed will be many multiples of what it is now. It will only take a few minutes and all our files will be transferred. The guys who write like base their conclusions on looking backwards without giving any credit to the future. John Power Racehorse in the Desert -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, August 03, 2004 6:34 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Oh the gloom of it all Rob said: > All media has limitations, if you want the best out of anything you have to > exercise current best storage/file maintenance practice to ensure its longevity > its not rocket science (well not at the user end anyhow). > > In any case I'm sure you will also hear the other arguments which go something > like; who will care when you are gone anyhow? (not that I agree entirely with > this stance either but it's a valid perspective :-) I believe the best idea is: For film images, keep the negatives in the safest place practical and also scan the really important stuff and keep the digital files in the safest manner practical; for digital images, print the really important stuff and keep in the safest place practical (archival version of the shoeboxes under the bed) as well as preserving the digital files in the safest manner practical. Which, since we can't do that with thousands of images shot machine-gun style with digital cameras, means we're down to some major editing. It IS a shame, though, that so many folks persist in leaving all their images on a single computer hard drive, to be lost in one fell swoop when there's a technical problem. Burning a backup CD (or two) or using a removeable hard drive (or both) is not at all a difficult precaution to take. ERN
