http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CD-R#Expected_lifespan
In short, Mixon is right - you'll have to copy the contents of a CD-R/DVD-R pretty often. More so than 20 years though. I've read an article, can't remember where - that said a CD-R that could last 10 years was pretty good. Organizing cd/dvd's by age seems like a good idea for this. Who's got the time for that though? In the process of moving, I was able to get data off of CD-R's (single speed, gold backed) as late as 1996. Silver backed single speed CD-RW's written around this time were completely unreadable, causing me to lose some data from that era. Just don't be fooled that they'll last 20 or 30 years. In my personal experience, they don't. Glen On Mon, Nov 16, 2009 at 9:59 AM, Mark Minton <[email protected]> wrote: > David Locklear said: > >>I think the next hurdle is to develop a laptop that doesn't use batteries, >> and uses a crank and some kind of power saving device not affected by >> storage. > > Why not make your computer solar powered? I don't know the expected > lifetime of solar panels, but ones stored dry and in the dark might last a > long time. Take them and your archived computer out into the sun and let > 'er rip. Presumably there will still be sunshine, unless the future is a > Matrix sort of world. ;-) Actually, electricity will still likely be used > and available in some form for a long time. Just provide a simple set of > terminals on your computer and any power source of the future with the > proper voltage and amperage should work. The bigger problem would be > communicating anything 500 years into the future. What language would you > use? > > Bill Mixon said: > >>Anyway, there wouldn't be any convenient way to get the data out of the >> computer, even if you could read it on screen. > > It seems likely that some sort of scanning technology will be around > for quite a while. Assuming the language on the screen could be understood, > it shouldn't be too much trouble to scan it, or take the equivalent of > movies of it, and then convert that into whatever the current digital format > is. Again the bigger problem would be making the archived output > meaningful. Pictures might be better than anything written. > > Mark > > You may reply to [email protected] > Permanent email address is [email protected] > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > Visit our website: http://texascavers.com > To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] > For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected] > >
