If you want loads of Spectrum Games and Articles this site http://www.cdworld.co.uk/mmcd/ was offering two CDs for almost everything associated with the Spectrum including emulators.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Malcolm Cadman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, September 30, 2002 7:31 PM Subject: Re: [ql-users] Keeping your old SINCLAIR data accessible [ex QL Chat] > > In article <00db01c26897$1e60b580$dc169fd4@johns>, John G Hitchcock > <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes > > A bit OT ... yet a couple of comments :-) > > >It you want to amaze a child used to playing on a games console, try telling > >them that computer games used to come on cassette tapes. In 1982, proud > >owners of the Sinclair ZX Spectrum (which boasted a stunning 16K - that's > >kilobytes - of memory in its basic configuration) would connect the audio > >output of the cassette recorder to the Spectrum's input; the program, > >recorded as a series of high and low tones, was then translated into data > >and loaded into memory. > > If anyone is a 'Spectrum' collector then a batch of books, tapes, etc, > will be available at the London Quanta meeting in November. These were > passed on by Roy Wood. > > >Getting a handle on the preservation of this digital data is the purpose of > >the Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC), which last week announced an > >action plan "to ensure that the digital information we are producing is not > >lost to current and future generations". > > > >At the launch of the project, which has backing from 19 UK organisations - > >including the Public Record Office (PRO), the Joint Information Systems > >Committee of the Higher and Farther Education Funding Councils (JISC), the > >British Library and the University of London - a pertinent example was > >mentioned: the BBC Domesday Project. This was a multimedia project that > >eventually produced a pair of interactive video discs, made by the BBC, to > >celebrate the 900th anniversary of the original Domesday Book. More than a > >million people contributed in some way, providing offerings from schools and > >researchers. > > My school was one of the contributers to this project ... and had photos > of the local High Street, etc, on the Domesday Disc. > > Problem was it required a special player, made by Phillips, which didn't > become popular - the discs were the size of LP records. So I guess few > will ever be able to read this electronic Domesday in future ! > > >These were then stored on the discs and could be viewed using a BBC Acorn > >computer. It was claimed that it would take you more than seven years to > >look at everything on the discs. However, by the time you had looked at all > >that content, the computers would long since have become obsolete. And > >that's pretty much what has happened: "As a multimedia resource and > >interactive learning tool it was unsurpassed," said Loyd Grossman, chairman > >of the DPC. "Yet despite those achievements, the problems of hardware and > >software dependence have now rendered the system obsolete. With few working > >examples left, the information on this incredible historical object will > >soon disappear forever." > > I can attest to that ! > > >Items are sent to the PRO when they are at least 30 years old; most are > >weeded out over time, and regarded as not worth keeping as a matter of > >historical record about the working of government, and so the PRO only > >receives 3 per cent of the paperwork that was generated in any department. > >It was even so for 2001 - covering the period stretching back to 1971 and > >(for more secret documents) even earlier, which generated a stack of paper > >that covers the equivalent of 1.5 kilometres (0.9 miles) of shelf space. And > >in a few years, there will be more and more computer tapes and disks. The > >question is, how should they be preserved? And what is the best medium and > >encoding format to make them available over the long term, perhaps hundreds > >of years? > > I expect pen and paper,and newsprints, etc, will still be around for a > long time to come. > > -- > Malcolm Cadman
