1000 year DVDs.

If this works, it could be the first digital storage format that has a
chance at matching black and white paper for archival durability. I heard
the story on the news the other day, the drive is about $150.00.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391129,00.asp

On 2011-11-12 02:52 , Rich wrote:
If this works, it could be the first digital storage format that has a
chance at matching black and white paper for archival durability. I heard
the story on the news the other day, the drive is about $150.00.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391129,00.asp

I wrote about such advances here last year or a couple years ago. Nice
to see them getting to market.

BTW: ordinary paper is not archival. You need acid free paper and it
needs to be stored in a benign environment. And of course it is the ink
that contains the information. It also needs to be a stable product
with pigments, not dyes. (Your article above says: "dies" - makes one
sygh).

Other advances include memory devices that physically, at a nonoscopic
scale, move iron dots (a few molecules) around to "write" the data.
This form is computed to be stable for 1 M years.

--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.

On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 10:14:15 -0500, Alan Browne
wrote:

On 2011-11-12 02:52 , Rich wrote:
If this works, it could be the first digital storage format that has a
chance at matching black and white paper for archival durability. I heard
the story on the news the other day, the drive is about $150.00.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391129,00.asp

I wrote about such advances here last year or a couple years ago. Nice
to see them getting to market.

BTW: ordinary paper is not archival. You need acid free paper and it
needs to be stored in a benign environment. And of course it is the ink
that contains the information. It also needs to be a stable product
with pigments, not dyes. (Your article above says: "dies" - makes one
sygh).

Other advances include memory devices that physically, at a nonoscopic
scale, move iron dots (a few molecules) around to "write" the data.
This form is computed to be stable for 1 M years.

Surely "black and white paper" implies metalic silver photographic
paper and not the dyes and pigments you mention. Metalic silver images
are indeed regarded as archival.

On 12/11/2011 2:52 AM, Rich wrote:
If this works, it could be the first digital storage format that has a
chance at matching black and white paper for archival durability. I heard
the story on the news the other day, the drive is about $150.00.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391129,00.asp


Archival Inkjet (pigment inks) already exceed B&W Fibre based, archival
processed prints.

Mike

On 2011-11-14 02:47 , Josh wrote:
On Sat, 12 Nov 2011 10:14:15 -0500, Alan Browne
wrote:

On 2011-11-12 02:52 , Rich wrote:
If this works, it could be the first digital storage format that has a
chance at matching black and white paper for archival durability. I heard
the story on the news the other day, the drive is about $150.00.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2391129,00.asp

I wrote about such advances here last year or a couple years ago. Nice
to see them getting to market.

BTW: ordinary paper is not archival. You need acid free paper and it
needs to be stored in a benign environment. And of course it is the ink
that contains the information. It also needs to be a stable product
with pigments, not dyes. (Your article above says: "dies" - makes one
sygh).

Other advances include memory devices that physically, at a nonoscopic
scale, move iron dots (a few molecules) around to "write" the data.
This form is computed to be stable for 1 M years.

Surely "black and white paper" implies metalic silver photographic
paper and not the dyes and pigments you mention. Metalic silver images
are indeed regarded as archival.

Could be. But that's part of the issue - not all of it.

The biggest weakness with paper is its pH. Cheaper papers contain acids
making the paper dry and brittle and attacking the ink.

Vellum and other papers are extremely stable. You don't need "photo
paper" for archival; but photo paper needs to be acid free to be durable.

The inks/pigments are of course very important as well.

The Magna Carta survived for about 800 years: animal skin (parchment).



--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.

"Mike" wrote in message
...
Archival Inkjet (pigment inks) already exceed B&W Fibre based, archival
processed prints.

My money's on a good sepia toned toned standard print, but you'll have to
wait hundreds of years to know for sure.

Trevor.

On 11/15/2011 3:00 AM, Trevor wrote:
wrote in message
...
Archival Inkjet (pigment inks) already exceed B&W Fibre based, archival
processed prints.

My money's on a good sepia toned toned standard print, but you'll have to
wait hundreds of years to know for sure.

Trevor.

I must assume that most people will still have functioning eyes in a
thousand years. How many will still have a DVD player? How many can
still read those 30-year-old 5.25" floppies? Or any of the many variants
of the 14" diameter hard discs--single disc? 6 disc? 11 disc? Only
roughly 50 years old--a twentieth of 1000 years. To quote Ben Stein's
immortal line from Ferris Bueller--"Anyone? Anyone?"
Where wll the Rosetta Stone be found to decypher those little shiny discs?
Allen

On 2011-11-15 10:12 , Allen wrote:
On 11/15/2011 3:00 AM, Trevor wrote:
wrote in message
...
Archival Inkjet (pigment inks) already exceed B&W Fibre based, archival
processed prints.

My money's on a good sepia toned toned standard print, but you'll have to
wait hundreds of years to know for sure.

Trevor.

I must assume that most people will still have functioning eyes in a
thousand years. How many will still have a DVD player? How many can
still read those 30-year-old 5.25" floppies? Or any of the many variants
of the 14" diameter hard discs--single disc? 6 disc? 11 disc? Only
roughly 50 years old--a twentieth of 1000 years. To quote Ben Stein's
immortal line from Ferris Bueller--"Anyone? Anyone?"
Where wll the Rosetta Stone be found to decypher those little shiny discs?

The issue is data survival. On current cheap CD/DVD's, the data is safe
for 5 - 10, maybe 15 years. On "Gold" disks, 100 or so. This (and
other) new formats promise long lasting, durable media.

As to readability, I would bet that any format will be readable as there
will be machines that can be built on the spot for the sole purpose of
digging into the data and deciphering it. Technology will evolve such
that anything made in the past will allow for a cheap machine to be
purpose built to read any past physical format. Decoding content will
rely on the vast trove of technical data available in thousands of places.

Unlike many "dead" formats, look at the "BluRay" format:

A player can read:
-BluRay
-DVD
-CD

That's three different base formats with one laser. (as long as the
frequency goes up you can always read the lower frequency data).

There are billions of these disks lying around. Many of them "factory
pressed". So the making and maintenance of systems that are backward
compatible will continue for a very long time. Format information is
exceedingly well documented. The 12 cm format is very convenient -
neither too large nor too small to be practical.

Libraries will conserve the ability to read these formats as well as
store them in evolving long lasting storage of other formats.

Despite the past I believe the future of the CD/DVD format will be very
long lasting. It is not tapes and floppy disks.

--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.

On 11/15/11 PDT 10:17 AM, Alan Browne wrote:


Despite the past I believe the future of the CD/DVD format will be very
long lasting. It is not tapes and floppy disks.

No, nor is it optical media. They'll be legacy in 15 years.
Solid state and HDD drives are the future, until something still better
comes along.

On 15/11/2011 18:17, Alan Browne wrote:
On 2011-11-15 10:12 , Allen wrote:
On 11/15/2011 3:00 AM, Trevor wrote:
wrote in message
...
Archival Inkjet (pigment inks) already exceed B&W Fibre based, archival
processed prints.

My money's on a good sepia toned toned standard print, but you'll
have to
wait hundreds of years to know for sure.

Trevor.

I must assume that most people will still have functioning eyes in a
thousand years. How many will still have a DVD player? How many can
still read those 30-year-old 5.25" floppies? Or any of the many variants
of the 14" diameter hard discs--single disc? 6 disc? 11 disc? Only
roughly 50 years old--a twentieth of 1000 years. To quote Ben Stein's
immortal line from Ferris Bueller--"Anyone? Anyone?"
Where wll the Rosetta Stone be found to decypher those little shiny
discs?

The issue is data survival. On current cheap CD/DVD's, the data is safe
for 5 - 10, maybe 15 years. On "Gold" disks, 100 or so. This (and other)
new formats promise long lasting, durable media.

As to readability, I would bet that any format will be readable as there
will be machines that can be built on the spot for the sole purpose of
digging into the data and deciphering it. Technology will evolve such
that anything made in the past will allow for a cheap machine to be
purpose built to read any past physical format. Decoding content will
rely on the vast trove of technical data available in thousands of places.

It proved harder than expected for the BBC 1986 Doomsday disk
resurrection and that was after a mere couple of decades. The video disk
data format they used was seriously out evolved in the meantime.

Unlike many "dead" formats, look at the "BluRay" format:

A player can read:
-BluRay
-DVD
-CD

But very few of them can read the older Panasonic PD rewritable disks
that early adopters used. I think some Panasonic drives might.

That's three different base formats with one laser. (as long as the
frequency goes up you can always read the lower frequency data).

There are billions of these disks lying around. Many of them "factory
pressed". So the making and maintenance of systems that are backward
compatible will continue for a very long time. Format information is
exceedingly well documented. The 12 cm format is very convenient -
neither too large nor too small to be practical.

You mean like all those 78 vinyl disk players stacked high at the
supermarket?

Libraries will conserve the ability to read these formats as well as
store them in evolving long lasting storage of other formats.

Despite the past I believe the future of the CD/DVD format will be very
long lasting. It is not tapes and floppy disks.

I reckon they will last a while, but they will almost certainly be
overtaken by write once memory sticks of some sort or other with no
moving parts.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown