Re: [ARSCLIST] CD-R question

["Richard L. Hess" <arclists@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 08:11 PM 2008-01-05, John Spencer wrote:
> Richard (and more so to Mr. Friedman),
>
> Do we have any concrete expectations that CD drives will be available
> in 50 years? Please point me to the information that guarantees that,
> I would be happy to be reassured that CD drives will be available
> then. I tend to be much more pessimistic about hardware/ software
> availability given the 50-year target mentioned.

Hi, John,

Happy New Year!

I think we'll be in as good or better shape playing back CDs in 50 
years as we will be playing back reel tapes in 35-40 years which is 
approx the 50-year time frame that LoC was still advocating transfers 
to 2-track tapes.

There are just too many, and they're not going to all break.

As with any media, as the supply of machines dries up it's the 
archive's responsibility to migrate/reformat before they cannot. I 
think we've had this discussion before <smile>.

Cheers,

Richard

Richard L. Hess                   email: richard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Aurora, Ontario, Canada       (905) 713 6733     1-877-TAPE-FIX
Detailed contact information: http://www.richardhess.com/tape/contact.htm
Quality tape transfers -- even from hard-to-play tapes.