Re: [ARSCLIST] "Forever" is hype (was Re: [ARSCLIST] Why sticky shed happened)

[Don Cox <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 02/07/06, Mwcpc6@xxxxxxx wrote:
> In a message dated 7/1/2006 3:13:42 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> tflists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes: I read somewhere that some
> organization, maybe a government agency, was studying printing binary
> machine language of certain key digital documents or software and
> printing on archival paper, the
> idea being that it would survive a nuclear war and if surviving people
> could somehow construct a
> computer and punch this stuff in, they'd be able to recreate the
> digital content. Might be sci-fi but I'm pretty sure I read it from a
> reputable news source. This may have been some dot-bomb bs in
> the 90s, however.
> 
> -- Tom Fine
> ******************
> 
> About 30 years ago the Kodak research laboratory was working on
> recording digital data on silver halides in gelatin on glass discs.
> That combination of materials has held up for more than 100 years with
> reasonable storage conditions. High resolution black and white
> emulsions hadn't changed much in that time, though "improved"
> emulsions may be different now. It may have actually been used for
> some military projects.
> 
> Mike Csontos

That would have the advantage over "burned" digital discs of having a
fixing process to make the record permanent.

I'm not sure whether you could get the same resolution as on current CDs
or DVDs, but you might get near it.

The process would never be popular because of the need for a chemical
process, but it could find a niche in archiving. For example, record
companies might like to store their digital recordings in a safer format
now that the copyright period is so long.
 
Regards
-- 
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx