[TriLUG] Availability of bzip2 in 20 years?

[Len Boyle]

An interesting topic. 

Until a few years ago we had an 1600/6500bpi 9-track tape drive that had reached a state where the foam insulation in the box (used for noise reduction) would fall apart with a touch. And this tape drive was newer then the 800bpi tape drives. But those electronics would just keep on working. But you can still buy new reel tape drives that take up much less space and cost much less then the old stk or ibm tape drives. 

We had a rule of thump that those old 9-track tapes would only last about 7 years and would have to be recorded after that. But I have seen older tapes read. 
I believe a number of cdroms would not even last that long. 

Quantum claims a 30 year archive time for the dlt. I know that time period was not good for an active tape as they could wear out in a shorter time with only a few hundred uses. 

The libraries assume at least 100 years for micro-films if made of the correct materials, processed correctly and stored in the correct environment. 

And paper made of the correct materials, processed correctly and stored in the correct environment can last hundreds of years. 

I remember seeing a little news piece a number of years ago that Rockwell were researching machines that would write a hologram on a micro-fiche (index card size piece of film). If the micro-fiche was damaged the data could still be read. But I never saw them on the marketplace.

I have also seen talk of using fancy barcodes to record programs and data on paper, which would last longer then magnetic and optical media.  

len

-----Original Message-----
From: trilug-bounces at trilug.org [mailto:trilug-bounces at trilug.org] On Behalf Of Rodney Radford
Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2006 11:02 AM
To: Triangle Linux Users Group discussion list
Subject: Re: [TriLUG] Availability of bzip2 in 20 years?


Ummm, I still have an 800 bpi 9-track tape as a 'backup' of some old files from NCSU when I left my undergraduate degree...  I guess I am probably in trouble, eh?

But the best answer is that if you really care about what is on the DVDs, or any format, is to transfer them over to new formats/compressions as they come along.  That way your media and file format are always 'current' enough.  If you don't transfer them, or remember them, then perhaps you didn't miss them (like the files on my 9-track tape).

>>I'm considering backing up to bzip2 instead of gzip (.tgz) to
>>pack more on a single DVD. <end snip>

>Steve, you are missing something here. In 20 years you will not have a
>device that is capable of "reading" a DVD. (That assumes that the
>plastic disk is still in working order also.)
>   Not counting one in the closet, do you still have a 5 1/4" flopply
>drive on your PC? That is 20 year old technology. The IBM 3.5" flopply
>came into being only 19 years ago:
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Personal_System/2
>   I don't even want to think about all those 20 years old back-up tapes!  :)

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