On 7/24/2017 5:18 AM, Frank wrote:


I'm considering one of those one box deals where you fill it with old
films, media and tapes etc and for a couple of hundred bucks get all
copied to modern media.

Which unfortunately dies of age 5-10 years down the line, or there is no
longer a device to read it available.

On Wednesday, July 26, 2017 at 2:23:06 PM UTC-5, Bob F wrote:

On 7/24/2017 5:18 AM, Frank wrote:


I'm considering one of those one box deals where you fill it with old
films, media and tapes etc and for a couple of hundred bucks get all
copied to modern media.

Which unfortunately dies of age 5-10 years down the line, or there is no
longer a device to read it available.


You can use archival DVD's. Guaranteed for about 300 years
but DVD's haven't been around that long to really say what
their life span is. Anyway, that's what museums and uni-
versities use.

On Wednesday, July 26, 2017 at 3:23:06 PM UTC-4, Bob F wrote:
On 7/24/2017 5:18 AM, Frank wrote:


I'm considering one of those one box deals where you fill it with old
films, media and tapes etc and for a couple of hundred bucks get all
copied to modern media.

Which unfortunately dies of age 5-10 years down the line, or there is no
longer a device to read it available.

Once it's converted to digital you can easily move it to future digital media every 10 years, or as needed, with no loss in quality. If it's important, then it should be duplicated on different types of storage, cloud, etc. It's orders of magnitude better than old pictures that are subject to deterioration.

On 7/26/2017 7:14 PM, trader_4 wrote:
On Wednesday, July 26, 2017 at 3:23:06 PM UTC-4, Bob F wrote:
On 7/24/2017 5:18 AM, Frank wrote:


I'm considering one of those one box deals where you fill it with old
films, media and tapes etc and for a couple of hundred bucks get all
copied to modern media.

Which unfortunately dies of age 5-10 years down the line, or there is no
longer a device to read it available.

Once it's converted to digital you can easily move it to future digital media every 10 years, or as needed, with no loss in quality. If it's important, then it should be duplicated on different types of storage, cloud, etc. It's orders of magnitude better than old pictures that are subject to deterioration.

I've got 100 year old pictures. And I can see what they are immediately.
An old, even "archival" CD. What are you going to look at it on? If you
even bother.

I suspect most of such things will disappear.

On Thursday, July 27, 2017 at 12:01:00 AM UTC-4, Bob F wrote:
On 7/26/2017 7:14 PM, trader_4 wrote:
On Wednesday, July 26, 2017 at 3:23:06 PM UTC-4, Bob F wrote:
On 7/24/2017 5:18 AM, Frank wrote:


I'm considering one of those one box deals where you fill it with old
films, media and tapes etc and for a couple of hundred bucks get all
copied to modern media.

Which unfortunately dies of age 5-10 years down the line, or there is no
longer a device to read it available.

Once it's converted to digital you can easily move it to future digital media every 10 years, or as needed, with no loss in quality. If it's important, then it should be duplicated on different types of storage, cloud, etc. It's orders of magnitude better than old pictures that are subject to deterioration.

I've got 100 year old pictures. And I can see what they are immediately.


Assuming they aren't eaten by silverfish or otherwise deteriorated from less than ideal storage. And you can't copy them, make new ones, without loss in quality. With digital, the original accuracy is maintained 100%.


An old, even "archival" CD. What are you going to look at it on? If you
even bother.


I guess you missed the part where I said that you can easily move digital to newer media, storage, every 10 years or whenever required. You can play playback records today, movies from 100 years ago. With all the dvds in use today I see no reason to think that if you came across a DVD 100 years from now that there would be no way to get what's there off. In my book, digital is far superior, but you can rely on paper, your choice.


I suspect most of such things will disappear.

..

On Wed, 26 Jul 2017 21:28:34 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

I see no reason to think that if you came across a DVD 100 years from now that there would be no way to get what's there off.

Where would you find a 12" optical drive right now?
That was sold as archival storage just 20-25 years ago.
You would have a hard enough time finding a PC with a 5.25" diskette
drive. I have some IBM 3363 optical disks and I bet there are not 10
running drives in the whole country.
I agree you can copy to new media without losing anything but you
better do it pretty fast while the old drives are still around.

On Thursday, July 27, 2017 at 1:03:41 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Wed, 26 Jul 2017 21:28:34 -0700 (PDT), trader_4
wrote:

I see no reason to think that if you came across a DVD 100 years from now that there would be no way to get what's there off.

Where would you find a 12" optical drive right now?
That was sold as archival storage just 20-25 years ago.
You would have a hard enough time finding a PC with a 5.25" diskette
drive. I have some IBM 3363 optical disks and I bet there are not 10
running drives in the whole country.
I agree you can copy to new media without losing anything but you
better do it pretty fast while the old drives are still around.


You may have some trouble finding a computer that will read an MFM hard drive as the interface is disappearing from motherboards. I have all sorts of USB adapters in my bag of tech tricks including older computers so I can hookup to the older media. I recall seeing some years ago an interface for hooking old mainframe reel to reel data tape drives to a PC. You could be a mad scientist with that sort of equipment in your computer room. I'd like to see an iPhone interface for that old stuff. ヽ(ヅ)ノ

[8~{} Uncle Tape Monster

On Thu, 27 Jul 2017 02:08:25 -0700 (PDT), Uncle Monster
wrote:

I recall seeing some years ago an interface for hooking old mainframe reel to reel data tape drives to a PC.
There were SCSI connected drives for 9 track tape but most used
differential SCSI. You could get a differential SCSI card but it was
unusual. They were really aimed at AS/400s. The other issue was
software to support them. IBM did make a PS/2 machine that ran DOS VSE
tho. That had a 360/370 interface card that would run almost anything
that would run on a mainframe.
I bet there are less than a dozen of them running today.

On Wed, 26 Jul 2017 20:55:04 -0700, Bob F wrote:

On 7/26/2017 7:14 PM, trader_4 wrote:
On Wednesday, July 26, 2017 at 3:23:06 PM UTC-4, Bob F wrote:
On 7/24/2017 5:18 AM, Frank wrote:


I'm considering one of those one box deals where you fill it with old
films, media and tapes etc and for a couple of hundred bucks get all
copied to modern media.

Which unfortunately dies of age 5-10 years down the line, or there is no
longer a device to read it available.

Once it's converted to digital you can easily move it to future digital media every 10 years, or as needed, with no loss in quality. If it's important, then it should be duplicated on different types of storage, cloud, etc. It's orders of magnitude better than old pictures that are subject to deterioration.

I've got 100 year old pictures. And I can see what they are immediately.
An old, even "archival" CD. What are you going to look at it on? If you
even bother.

I suspect most of such things will disappear.
Get the important stuff off of "media" and onto "archival paper"

On Thursday, July 27, 2017 at 9:56:01 AM UTC-5, wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jul 2017 02:08:25 -0700 (PDT), Uncle Monster
wrote:

I recall seeing some years ago an interface for hooking old mainframe reel to reel data tape drives to a PC.
There were SCSI connected drives for 9 track tape but most used
differential SCSI. You could get a differential SCSI card but it was
unusual. They were really aimed at AS/400s. The other issue was
software to support them. IBM did make a PS/2 machine that ran DOS VSE
tho. That had a 360/370 interface card that would run almost anything
that would run on a mainframe.
I bet there are less than a dozen of them running today.


I once had an original IBM PC with green screen monitor in my collection that had a "five" megabyte MFM hard drive that I picked up at a Ham Fest. I removed one of the 5.25 inch floppy drives to install the hard drive. I think I had a few PS/2 machines at one time. I also had an original potable Lunchbox Compaq PC. Me and my brother rescued a lot of old machines like those.. At home I have a several older Dell Precision desktops that are solid chunks of metal. The damn things weigh upwards of 60lbs each but they will run all day long 24/7. It's so easy to change hard drives in them. I like the business PC's like those because they're easy to work on. I kind of miss the good old days when computers weren't so user friendly because it was more fun to figure them out. ヽ(ヅ)ノ

[8~{} Uncle PC Monster

On Thu, 27 Jul 2017 11:39:47 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 26 Jul 2017 20:55:04 -0700, Bob F wrote:

On 7/26/2017 7:14 PM, trader_4 wrote:
On Wednesday, July 26, 2017 at 3:23:06 PM UTC-4, Bob F wrote:
On 7/24/2017 5:18 AM, Frank wrote:


I'm considering one of those one box deals where you fill it with old
films, media and tapes etc and for a couple of hundred bucks get all
copied to modern media.

Which unfortunately dies of age 5-10 years down the line, or there is no
longer a device to read it available.

Once it's converted to digital you can easily move it to future digital media every 10 years, or as needed, with no loss in quality. If it's important, then it should be duplicated on different types of storage, cloud, etc. It's orders of magnitude better than old pictures that are subject to deterioration.

I've got 100 year old pictures. And I can see what they are immediately.
An old, even "archival" CD. What are you going to look at it on? If you
even bother.

I suspect most of such things will disappear.
Get the important stuff off of "media" and onto "archival paper"

The government and industry disagree with you. The last bastions of
big piles of moldy paper are going electronic. These days court
documents and legal documents are PDF files. The day of paper files
may finally be behind us, only 40 years after it was predicted by the
computer folks.

On Thursday, July 27, 2017 at 12:06:22 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jul 2017 11:39:47 -0400, wrote:

On Wed, 26 Jul 2017 20:55:04 -0700, Bob F wrote:

On 7/26/2017 7:14 PM, trader_4 wrote:
On Wednesday, July 26, 2017 at 3:23:06 PM UTC-4, Bob F wrote:
On 7/24/2017 5:18 AM, Frank wrote:


I'm considering one of those one box deals where you fill it with old
films, media and tapes etc and for a couple of hundred bucks get all
copied to modern media.

Which unfortunately dies of age 5-10 years down the line, or there is no
longer a device to read it available.

Once it's converted to digital you can easily move it to future digital media every 10 years, or as needed, with no loss in quality. If it's important, then it should be duplicated on different types of storage, cloud, etc. It's orders of magnitude better than old pictures that are subject to deterioration.

I've got 100 year old pictures. And I can see what they are immediately..
An old, even "archival" CD. What are you going to look at it on? If you
even bother.

I suspect most of such things will disappear.
Get the important stuff off of "media" and onto "archival paper"

The government and industry disagree with you. The last bastions of
big piles of moldy paper are going electronic. These days court
documents and legal documents are PDF files. The day of paper files
may finally be behind us, only 40 years after it was predicted by the
computer folks.


When I see a new doctor, I hand the doctor a thumb drive with my information on it. It will probably get to the point where you transfer your information from your smartphone to a medical practitioner's phone or tablet. I don't own a smartass phone so I stick to a thumb drive. ヽ(ヅ)ノ

[8~{} Uncle Drive Monster

On Thu, 27 Jul 2017 11:25:22 -0700 (PDT), Uncle Monster
wrote:


The government and industry disagree with you. The last bastions of
big piles of moldy paper are going electronic. These days court
documents and legal documents are PDF files. The day of paper files
may finally be behind us, only 40 years after it was predicted by the
computer folks.


When I see a new doctor, I hand the doctor a thumb drive with my information on it. It will probably get to the point where you transfer your information from your smartphone to a medical practitioner's phone or tablet. I don't own a smartass phone so I stick to a thumb drive. ?(?)?

The fact is the insurance companies already have access to your
medical records right now, at least anything you did not pay cash for
and did not try to claim. Even then you would have had to lie about
your name when you got the service and these days they want to see
more ID than you need to vote.
When we all get our chip it will be academic anyway. As soon as the
scanner by the door reads your chip, your whole life will pop up on
their computer. It is sort of like what happens now when a license
plate scanner on a cop car sees your plate. I predict that before long
we won't need tags because we will all be required to have
transponders in our car, perhaps reading the chip in your arm and
transmitting that info too.
Bear in mind "Big Brother" was from a book about 1984. Look behind
you.

On Thursday, July 27, 2017 at 2:19:35 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Thu, 27 Jul 2017 11:25:22 -0700 (PDT), Uncle Monster
wrote:

The government and industry disagree with you. The last bastions of
big piles of moldy paper are going electronic. These days court
documents and legal documents are PDF files. The day of paper files
may finally be behind us, only 40 years after it was predicted by the
computer folks.

When I see a new doctor, I hand the doctor a thumb drive with my information on it. It will probably get to the point where you transfer your information from your smartphone to a medical practitioner's phone or tablet. I don't own a smartass phone so I stick to a thumb drive. ?(?)?

The fact is the insurance companies already have access to your
medical records right now, at least anything you did not pay cash for
and did not try to claim. Even then you would have had to lie about
your name when you got the service and these days they want to see
more ID than you need to vote.
When we all get our chip it will be academic anyway. As soon as the
scanner by the door reads your chip, your whole life will pop up on
their computer. It is sort of like what happens now when a license
plate scanner on a cop car sees your plate. I predict that before long
we won't need tags because we will all be required to have
transponders in our car, perhaps reading the chip in your arm and
transmitting that info too.
Bear in mind "Big Brother" was from a book about 1984. Look behind
you.


I had an idea for a chip that could be implanted in the base of the skull of any illegal alien caught in the country. When they are repatriated, the chip is activated and will explode if the alien crosses the border again without the chip being officially deactivated. It would also explode if a surgeon tried to remove it on the other side of the border. What would really be funny if it were all a fake story told the illegals and the implant just an RFID chip that would set off alarms when the illegal alien passed by a detector. ヽ(ヅ)ノ

[8~{} Uncle Exploding Monster