How your computer collection may save history

[Aaron Teeling]

All,

This link to a news story came from a friend of mine in the Middle East.

Sort of illustrates why it's important to collect not just the hardware but the software as well.

Ancient IBM drive rescues Apollo moon data

Valuable mission data gathered by NASA's Apollo missions to the moon forty years ago looks like it may be recovered thanks to a donation of an ancient IBM tape drive by a Sydney computer society.

http://cwflyris.computerworld.com/t/3876174/126499/150799/2/

 

[tezza]

Interesting article. Thanks for sharing.

Tez

 

[paul]

You would have to wonder why tapes would have been stored without an associated drive, but I suppose it's easy to forget given how technology moves gradually enough to distract you from practical matters such as this.

No doubt the data will now be placed on a CD and put away in a filing cabinet until next needed, at which time they will discover that CD media has been long-obsolete. CD-ROM technology has already been around for 25 years, how long can it last?

 

[Terry Yager]

It used to be common practice to store backups off-site, in case of fire, flood, 'minor disaster', etc

--T

 

[BG101]

I wonder if a CD would even be readable in 40 years' time?





BG

 

[carlsson]

A professionally made one possibly, a home made, burned CD-R most probably not as far as I've understood the experts.