On 10/16/2004 4:46 PM Donald Qualls spake thus:

Let's try this one: can your former employers, specializing in data
format conversion, read a Coleco Adam data tape? Hint: if you find one,
it'll look exactly like an obsolete audio cassette -- because it is.
But if you play it in an audio player, you'll get only a very loud, very
raucous blaring noise; most computer users today wouldn't even recognize
it as a data encoding signal (it doesn't sound at all like modem or fax
tones). Or how about the same storage media written by a Commodore Pet?
Both were fairly popular hobbyist computers in their day (around 25+
years ago), and both had at least a small business presence.

Well, for that matter, how about the original cassette BASIC storage system
for the first IBM PC? (I remember using those on school.) But anyhow, the
answer is "yes": someone could be found out there who has the hardware &
software to read these.


--
Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a
really easy way: stop participating in it.

- Noam Chomsky