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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Several thoughts on shelf life. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>In 1999 the local government called for people to
submit contents for a time capsule to be sealed for 100 years. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I recorded a section of my radio including the call
for contents and some other local content, copied the audio to MP3, reduced it
to a CD and sent it in to the government. </FONT><FONT face=Arial
size=2>On the day they sealed the capsule there was a news announcement about
the opening of a time capsule in Colorado - sealed in 1900 to be opened in
2000. Out of that box came a gold foil cylinder of audio recordings from
the original Edison recording system. No one had any device to PLAY
the cylinder and they ended up sending it to the Smithsonian - where they got
Edison's original cylinder recorder out of a glass case to play the Colorado
recording... </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>Made me wonder if ANYONE in 2100
would have a CD drive and computer in a glass case anywhere that would play my
CD in the sealed container... or if anyone would still recognize and of the code
that was used to record it. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>In the 1990's the Smithsonian reported a problem
because they have many data records made on 8 inch floppy disk media using the
C/PM operating system but no longer had any working computers that ran either
C/PM or could read 8 inch media. </FONT></DIV>
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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The lifespan of media is getting shorter and
shorter. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I have rolled over all of my data from my first PC
(1981 IBM PC with 120 K 5.25 inch floppy drives) to each successive media as I
evolve my personal computing. from desktop to laptop to the next and the
next - from my first 10 Mg HD to 250 GB disks to my terabyte box - - I have
everything I have ever written and it has migrated onto whatever the latest HD
in my latest system. I continue to copy forward to each new media and spread it
around, so the whole kit and kaboodle in copied onto computers at work, at home
at the university, and onto various back up media- CD's external HD's and so
on.... yet while the contents of my programs has been faithfully copied, I now
find that the programs that wrote the files are no longer able to run under the
latest operating systems, so my old EasyWriter files and dBase 2 files are hard
to access - not because I didn't save them but because the programs that wrote
them are recalcitrant under Windows. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Recently a law suit between two large corporations
involved a debate over who created e-commerce. I pulled out of my files my
working on-line database system for buying and selling computers from 1983 and
pulled the system off 5.25 inch floppies and brought that DB system into modern
media. It may be seminal to the resolution of these companies dispute.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>In a desk drawer I have the letters my late parents
wrote to each other from the 1930's. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Easy to read today... Paper, stamps, ink, envelopes
with post marks and addresses</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>My son sends Instant messages to his
girlfriend. </FONT><FONT face=Arial size=2>They vaporize in an instant.
</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Will there be anything left for their grandchildren
to read about their love?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>What will historians do with our era - there won't
be anything left. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>People say "it is all backed up to data drivers
somewhere.. but is it and what happens when those data records
vaporize?</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Most of my life I was told that Etruscan was a dead
language. No one could find any trace of it, lost. gone... always
cited as an example of how cultural stuff was ephemeral and could be totally
destroyed. In the world of Information Theory, Etruscan was the example
that information could be totally destroyed and leave no trace. yet here
is the WIkipedia with a whole section in Etruscan. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>At Princeton in the 1970's sculptor James Seawright
was making electronic sculptures and one comment was that his stuff had to be
made with a conscious knowledge that it had a limited shelf life.
Electronics would die. The art had a limited life. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Nothing lasts. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Alex Randall</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Professor of Communication </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Univ of the Virgin
Islands.</FONT></DIV></FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>