Re: [ARSCLIST] Taiyo-Yuden out of business??

[Don Cox <doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 03/09/07, Bob Olhsson wrote:

> -----Original Message-----
>> From Don Cox: "...They will certainly be obsolete for _new_ storage
>> by then,
> but it would be
> surprising if there were no machines available to play them. Equipment
> is available for playing cylinders and 78s..."
> 
> Parts can be easily constructed one-off at reasonable prices for
> devices playing cylinders and 78s. Digital gear is made up of parts
> that are only affordable when produced in immense quantities. Most of
> them are also only constructed to a disposable standard of quality.

The chips in a CD player have an indefinite life. They could also be
simulated on an FPGA chip on a one-off basis.

As I said, the price of a player for obsolete formats will be higher
than the present off-the-shelf consumer prices. It will be specialised
equipment for archivists.

The motors etc in the transport will wear out but are not high
technology. The laser should also be fairly easy to replace.

> 
> The good news is that you can clone digital audio. The bad news is
> that you need to do so frequently in order to stay ahead of hardware
> that will probably never be available again after only a few years.
> Those of us who have been working on standards have watched formats
> disappear faster than any standards could be defined. As solid state
> memory and broadband delivery take over, I expect to see all digital
> storage involving moving parts go away rapidly. Working DAT machines
> are becoming very rare because there are no more parts.
> 
> This parts manufacturing scale issue makes digital media EXTREMELY
> unreliable and expensive in the long run as an archival medium.
>     
Equipment for Red Book CD replay has been around for 25 years and I
think will be around for a long time yet.

Formats for memory modules have changed much more often. 

Regards
-- 
Don Cox
doncox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx