And then, oddly enough, this comes across /.
256GB Geometrically Encoded Paper Storage Device:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/26/140240
I was wondering why anyone would even bother till I read this thread.
-Lee
On Nov 26, 2006, at 12:20 PM, Len Boyle wrote:
An interesting topic.
Until a few years ago we had an 1600/6500bpi 9-track tape drive
that had reached a state where the foam insulation in the box (used
for noise reduction) would fall apart with a touch. And this tape
drive was newer then the 800bpi tape drives. But those electronics
would just keep on working. But you can still buy new reel tape
drives that take up much less space and cost much less then the old
stk or ibm tape drives.
We had a rule of thump that those old 9-track tapes would only last
about 7 years and would have to be recorded after that. But I have
seen older tapes read.
I believe a number of cdroms would not even last that long.
Quantum claims a 30 year archive time for the dlt. I know that time
period was not good for an active tape as they could wear out in a
shorter time with only a few hundred uses.
The libraries assume at least 100 years for micro-films if made of
the correct materials, processed correctly and stored in the
correct environment.
And paper made of the correct materials, processed correctly and
stored in the correct environment can last hundreds of years.
I remember seeing a little news piece a number of years ago that
Rockwell were researching machines that would write a hologram on a
micro-fiche (index card size piece of film). If the micro-fiche was
damaged the data could still be read. But I never saw them on the
marketplace.
I have also seen talk of using fancy barcodes to record programs
and data on paper, which would last longer then magnetic and
optical media.
len
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