Library of Congress could be adding Commodore 64s
posted November 10th 2004 1:19PM
Realizing that given the constant pace of technological innovation
and obsolescence that there is going to be a big gaping hole in the historical record when future historians start
looking back at the current era, the Library of Congress is investing millions into coming up with a scheme to help
people gain access and archive old digital files. For those with old floppy disks and CD-Rs that might be going
bad, the Library of Congress may be considering creating a usable museum of old computers that'll allows users to grab
old files and archive them on more modern media. Think about it: in about 20 years, your children or
grandchildren could be asking to see pictures of the old days, and you'll have to find a way to grab those 4 megapixel
pictures off of that crusty flash card. By hooking up with the Library of Congress, you could potentially find a
vintage Pentium 4, burn the files to a UV Disk, and save
those pictures for another 20 years.
What about the Atari 410 tape drive connected to the classic Atari 800????
There's a cottage industry right now of companies that will take your old home movies and move them to tape or DVD. You can bet those same companies will be reading obsolete computer media and converting it as well.
Yes, but not one of those companies can help me get my data off my old DSDD 40-track TRS-80 5.25" diskettes.
Actually such cottage industries have existed for years. I recall that some relatives of mine had their wedding movie tranfered from film to videocassette sometime back in the '80s. Of course now they'll need someone who can go from film to DVD as data loss from analogue generational discrepancies really stinks (IE quality is poor when making an analogue copy of an analogue copy).