Re: [ARSCLIST] Format conundrum

["Steven C. Barr" <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
> Does anyone make digital audio copies from their archival sound sources,
> then store the data as code printouts? Cards, paper, whatever?
> I would think with digital information technology, we don't really need
> to rely on tape or laser-encoded discs for archival storage when it
> would be so much more efficient to store the information as digital
> code, ready at any time to be translated through software into audio
> sound. A hard copy of the code would avoid the degradation that all
> storage media suffer and always offer a first-generation master of the
> original source recovery, where a CD-R or a tape would be subject to the
> condition of the transport media.
> Know what I mean?
> Steven Austin
Well, we run into one small (okeh..literally NOT so small) problem!

Let us assume that by using a small font and narrow margins we could pack
1,000 characters onto a single sheet of paper. The capacity of a CD-R can
be up to 700MB...or 734,003,200 characters...which would be 734,004
sheets of paper! If we assume that 500 sheets of paper make a stack
about 1.5 inches high, we have a stack of pages a little over 2,202
inches high...1101 if we print both sides...or about 91 feet high for
each CD we save that way (or about a 9-story building!)

Plus, we need a program that could read the actual byte values off the
CD (or CD-R). Does one exist?

Worse yet, I don't think the byte values actually represent the
waveform; doesn't a CD player have to do some digital wizardry to
convert those bytes into the actual waveforms? Though we could
save .wav files of the sonic contents, which, IIRC, do represent
the values making up the actual sonic signal. However, would this
necessitate a larger digital file and thus more paper?

Things also get complicated when we go to obtain the contents
from these paper sheets. We have to agree on a character set for
bytes 128-255 (several exist)...and then decide whether we use
OCR or typing by hand to put the numbers back into a computer.

Rather a task we'll be setting for our descendants, eh?

Steven C. Barr