I think I disagree with your blanket statement that obsolence of either makes them unrecoverable. If anything, it takes obsolence of both in my opinion, but in either case it's more a matter of how much you are willing to pay for recovery.
What really sucked about analog was that the original could not be copied at all without quality loss. Digital can be migrated losslessly between media for as long as you bother to migrate to new hardware regularly. Like with your tape reader. Since migrating to floppies, that's your historic 'event horizon'. If then migrated to CDs, why would you look back to floppies. And yeah, ImageMagick is a godsend, but only for us computer geeks. ;-) Jostein Den 14. februar 2015 16:44:58 CET, skrev Bruce Walker <[email protected]>: >The obsolescence of either is enough to render your data unrecoverable. >Physical media seems to die out sooner than file formats do simply >because >it's generally not too hard to keep a file format reader around in >software. As you found with ImageMagick. Thank goodness for that at >least. > >I actually own an 8-bit paper tape reader, 110 baud, chunky mechanical >thing with a big motor. The last time I used it to read tapes I cobbled >together a 20mA current loop to RS-232 converter and transferred a >bunch of >data to floppies. > >If I wanted to use it today I'd like to have a 20mA current loop to >Bluetooth interface but I don't imagine they are too plentiful. > >BTW, the last time I used that reader, I also had to write a DEC PDP-8e >emulator to run the code on them. Some of the tapes are in RIM format >and >some in BIN, all with code from the late 1960s and early 1970s. 'Twas a >gas >to see the old FOCAL prompt again. > > >On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 5:06 PM, Jostein Øksne <[email protected]> >wrote: >> I think you should differentiate between media obsolence and file >format obsolence. >> Jostein >> >> Den 13. februar 2015 20:34:02 CET, skrev "P.J. Alling" ><[email protected]>: >>>Recent motherboards don't even have floppy controllers built onto >them >>>and no one makes a PCI anything floppy controller add in board, so 5 >>>1/4 >>>floppys are dead unless you happen to have an older machine, (I have >>>one >>>for running my film scanner), you can still buy 3 1/2 inch USB floppy >>>drives, but they're not 100 percent compatible with anything. In >fact >>>I >>>think it would be easier to find something to read the paper tape >than >>>an 8" floppy. >>> >>>On 2/13/2015 2:25 PM, Bruce Walker wrote: >>>> I saw a bit of a convo between two Facebook connections with this >>>with >>>> one disbelieving that this could be a problem. "Someone, somewhere >>>can >>>> read your old file formats", he stated confidently. >>>> >>>> I'm tempted to show him some 1" paper tape and ask him if he knows >>>> anyone who can still read that. >>>> >>>> But even relatively modern formats are effectively dead these days. >>>> How many of us could read an 8 inch MDS-80 floppy? A 5.25" CP/M or >>>> MS-DOS floppy? Even finding a PC or Mac with a 3.5" 1.44M floppy on >>>it >>>> is non-trivial lately. In a pinch I can read 3.5" floppies, but I'd >>>> have to spend a couple of hours jury-rigging something together: an >>>> old PC from the basement, running FreeBSD and networked. >>>> >>>> My late 2014 iMac came with no CD/DVD reader/burner in it. I had to >>>> buy a USB one. >>>> >>>> The digital vellum idea is kinda like VMware, so I get it and it >>>makes >>>> sense. But printing photos works for me too since I like to see >them >>>> on my walls anyway. >>>> >>>> >>>> On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 12:32 PM, Christine Aguila >>>> <[email protected]> wrote: >>>>> Hi Team: >>>>> >>>>> Just thought this might be of interest given a recent thread about >>>compatibility of DNG files on old software versions. >>>>> >>>>> To my mind, more importantly, it makes the case for paper >>>:-)))—print your photos—and an even better idea is to make photo >>>books—which with Lightroom are really fun and relatively easy to >make. >>>>> >>>>> I’ve recently purchased some archival clam shell photo boxes for >>>loose photos, and they’ve been working out well. >>>>> >>>>> http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-31450389 >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> The solution suggested by internet guru, Vint Cerf, seems >>>interesting enough, but printing either a single photo or photo >books, >>>should still remain a viable option for showcasing and preserving all >>>your lovely photos—IMHO :-)!!! >>>>> >>>>> Cheers, Christine >>>>> -- >>>>> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >>>>> [email protected] >>>>> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >>>>> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above >>>and follow the directions. >>>> >>>> >> >> -- >> Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above >and follow the directions. -- Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
