"David Nebenzahl" wrote in message
...
Leaving aside any of the philosophical and semantic aspects of his
argument,
there's one glaring error in it. He asserts that because digital formats
change (which is true) that digital images made now will become unreadable
in
the future.

Now, if one is discussing images made on physical media (film), there *is*
the
distinct possibility that the image will be rendered unusable through time
because of physical degradation of the image. (Witness movies on nitrate
stock
and color negatives or slides with unstable dyes.)

And in the case of digital media, there is always the possibility that the
image will become unreadable because of *physical* degradation of the
media
(tape, magnetic disc, optical disc, etc.)

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.

I do know something about this, having worked for a computer media
conversion
and duplication company for 13 years. In that one small company alone,
there
exists the ability to read many obsolete digital formats (meaning both the
equuipment and the software to decipher the data and deliver it in a
usable
form): specifically, 9-track tape (remember the old movies with the
computers
with the spinning tape drives?) and floppy disks, including the old 8"
monsters.

I'm confident that even data on paper tape could be read; someone,
somewhere,
has a paper-tape reader connected to his S-100 system (running CP/M), or
some
other moldy oldie. And if not, a reader could pretty easily be cobbled
together.

The point is that humanity doesn't collectively forget its own obsolete
recording formats, just because something new comes along. Sure, the old
formats fall into disuse and become difficult to use, but not impossible.
The
knowledge of how to read and decipher all these old devices and formats
still
exists, somewhere.

Why, in this very house, I can right now play 78 rpm records if I like, or
45s
even. I can also read all of my old 5-1/4" floppies on my computer.

I'd like someone to try to name a data storage format (either physical
medium
or data format) that they think cannot be read today.


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

- Noam Chomsky

The problem is not will we be able to read a digital format but will we be
interested enough to spend so much energy in trying to read such an obsolete
thing ? When you find a computer in trash, do you take it to discover all
these marvelous pictures it certainly contains ?
I don't think so, you just consider it as rubbish.
When you encounter the equivalent in film, you easily can ccheck if it's
rubbish or not just using a pretty funny interface called "eyes".

Digital is a theorically perfect storage media provided you never forget
where your pictures are and you convert them at every major storage
technology change.
Practically, digital will cause a loss of an amount of images we may have
kept if they were stored on film or paper.

Regards,
--
Claudio Bonavolta
http://www.bonavolta.ch