[TriLUG] Availability of bzip2 in 20 years?

[Lee Fickenscher]

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