On 10/16/2004 1:51 PM Richard Knoppow spake thus:
"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
...
Leaving aside any of the philosophical and semantic
aspects of his argument, there's one glaring error in his
argument. He asserts that because digital formats change
(true) that digital images made now will become unreadable
in the future.
[...]
However, assuming that the *physical media* remains
intact, it is very, very unlikely that any
digitally-recorded image will ever become unreadable in
the future.
The oldest media you are dealing with is probably the 9
track data recordings. How old are they? probably not more
than about forty years, if that. In order to read them you
need to have the transport, heads that match the format, and
know what the format is. This is quite different from
"reading" still photographs, which requires no equipment
other than the eye, even for negatives. Motion pictures are
more difficult if one requires reproducing the motion but
the subject matter is also visiblel to the eye with no help
(other than perhaps a magnifyer). Also viewer and projector
technology has not changed fundamentally in over a century
and is still used.
More difficult will be the recovery of data from formats
as common as floppy discs. It will probably be possible but
will require the construction of suitable reproducers. While
a floppy drive is very cheap now it won't be when they are
no longer made and must be constructed as a single specialty
item.
The fact is that recovery of archived material on
photographic film requires little specialized equipment
while digital data will always require a lot of specialized
equipment.
[more good stuff snipped]
Everything you say is so; my point was simply that it will undoubtedly be
possible to read digital images, even from obsolete media and formats, in the
future. You pointed out that it may be difficult to do so, which is true. But
it will still be possile.
--
Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a
really easy way: stop participating in it.
- Noam Chomsky
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