«

here is a real world test, the toughest of them all:
let's see if 35mm negatives survived the flooding better than digital.
This includes unprocessed rolls of film, film still inside cameras,
negatives stored in grandpa's basement and uncle Lou's attic, photo
albums, 16mm&VHS videos, etc.
vs.
photos stored on CDs, DVDs, Zip disks, etc.
SD/xD cards(whether inside the camera or not), etc.

I bet 100 years from now if anyone finds a CD/DVD or an SD card
on the premises once known as New Orleans they will not know what
to do with it or how to read it as the OS, software, etc. will long
since have gone out of use and no one will know how to work with the
file formats just as now 99% dont know how to work with CP/M, DOS,
UNIX, etc.(how many here have used Windows 1.0 - 3.11?); However, if
negatives are found in good condition, photos could be made.(probably
VCRs wont exist so VHS tapes would be unreadable as well.)

Mr.Happy <> wrote:
> here is a real world test, the toughest of them all:
> let's see if 35mm negatives survived the flooding better than digital.
> This includes unprocessed rolls of film, film still inside cameras,
> negatives stored in grandpa's basement and uncle Lou's attic, photo
> albums, 16mm&VHS videos, etc.
> vs.
> photos stored on CDs, DVDs, Zip disks, etc.
> SD/xD cards(whether inside the camera or not), etc.
>
> I bet 100 years from now if anyone finds a CD/DVD or an SD card
> on the premises once known as New Orleans they will not know what
> to do with it or how to read it as the OS, software, etc. will long
> since have gone out of use and no one will know how to work with the
> file formats just as now 99% dont know how to work with CP/M, DOS,
> UNIX, etc.(how many here have used Windows 1.0 - 3.11?); However, if
> negatives are found in good condition, photos could be made.(probably
> VCRs wont exist so VHS tapes would be unreadable as well.)
>

The original COMMON formats that we saw in the late 80s and early 90s:

1. GIF
2. Bitmap
3. JPEG

They are all still in use today. I would throw TIFF in there, but I am
not sure when they first surfaced, but I remember them from quite a way
back.

My point ... it might be hard to find something to read the media, but I
don't think they will ever have any trouble with the image format.

--
Thomas T. Veldhouse
Key Fingerprint: 2DB9 813F F510 82C2 E1AE 34D0 D69D 1EDC D5EC AED1
Spammers please contact me at .

Mr.Happy wrote:

> here is a real world test, the toughest of them all:
> let's see if 35mm negatives survived the flooding better than digital.
> This includes unprocessed rolls of film, film still inside cameras,
> negatives stored in grandpa's basement and uncle Lou's attic, photo
> albums, 16mm&VHS videos, etc.
> vs.
> photos stored on CDs, DVDs, Zip disks, etc.
> SD/xD cards(whether inside the camera or not), etc.
>
> I bet 100 years from now if anyone finds a CD/DVD or an SD card
> on the premises once known as New Orleans they will not know what
> to do with it or how to read it as the OS, software, etc. will long
> since have gone out of use and no one will know how to work with the
> file formats just as now 99% dont know how to work with CP/M, DOS,
> UNIX, etc.(how many here have used Windows 1.0 - 3.11?); However, if
> negatives are found in good condition, photos could be made.(probably
> VCRs wont exist so VHS tapes would be unreadable as well.)

Hi...

The test as to which media type will have survived floodwaters isn't
valid. You can have only one original first generation piece of film
or paper; but unlimited identical copies of digital data, stored
anywhere you might like, on dozens of different media types.

If whatever it was was sufficiently important, it will have survived.
Having said that, I feel badly for those who have lost so much in the
flood, and wish them well.

As for reading/accessing old data, I guess I'm the old guy. I've used
them all, and still can if it's important enough. There will always be
someone who can.

Ken

In article < .com>,
Mr.Happy <> wrote:

> I bet 100 years from now if anyone finds a CD/DVD or an SD card
> on the premises once known as New Orleans they will not know what
> to do with it or how to read it as the OS, software, etc. will long
> since have gone out of use and no one will know how to work with the
> file formats just as now 99% dont know how to work with CP/M, DOS,
> UNIX, etc.(how many here have used Windows 1.0 - 3.11?); However, if
> negatives are found in good condition, photos could be made.(probably
> VCRs wont exist so VHS tapes would be unreadable as well.)

I have 5.25 disks here with Windows 1.04 on them. Could hook you up
with some vintage OS/2 too.

Mr.Happy wrote:

> I bet 100 years from now if anyone finds a CD/DVD or an SD card
> on the premises once known as New Orleans they will not know what
> to do with it or how to read it as the OS, software, etc. will long
> since have gone out of use and no one will know how to work with the
> file formats just as now 99% dont know how to work with CP/M, DOS,
> UNIX, etc.(how many here have used Windows 1.0 - 3.11?); However, if
> negatives are found in good condition, photos could be made.(probably
> VCRs wont exist so VHS tapes would be unreadable as well.)

(Sound of forehead being smacked.) Holy ****, Batman! How could
hundreds of millions of people have been duped? All those engineers
and marketers have been selling us a bill of goods! And no one -- NO
ONE -- figured it out until "Mr. Happy" made the deep, un-connectable,
connection! A blinding analysis that eluded everyone until now!
Someone, notify the Nobel Committee (http://nobelprize.org/); it may
not be too late for this year!!!

Please don't feed the trolls.

--
http://www.pbase.com/bcbaird

Archivists in museums will preserve the media and ways to read it. But, that
is just for old things they find...the data itself will be backed up. There
was a university collecting random websites some years ago as a record of
how the internet got started. They grabbed up my site that I had at the
time. Maybe someone is doing that now...but that might be impossible with
the growth of the net. Anyway...data survives.

--
Thanks,
Gene Palmiter
(visit my photo gallery at http://palmiter.dotphoto.com)
freebridge design group
www.route611.com & Route 611 Magazine
"Mr.Happy" <> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
> here is a real world test, the toughest of them all:
> let's see if 35mm negatives survived the flooding better than digital.
> This includes unprocessed rolls of film, film still inside cameras,
> negatives stored in grandpa's basement and uncle Lou's attic, photo
> albums, 16mm&VHS videos, etc.
> vs.
> photos stored on CDs, DVDs, Zip disks, etc.
> SD/xD cards(whether inside the camera or not), etc.
>
> I bet 100 years from now if anyone finds a CD/DVD or an SD card
> on the premises once known as New Orleans they will not know what
> to do with it or how to read it as the OS, software, etc. will long
> since have gone out of use and no one will know how to work with the
> file formats just as now 99% dont know how to work with CP/M, DOS,
> UNIX, etc.(how many here have used Windows 1.0 - 3.11?); However, if
> negatives are found in good condition, photos could be made.(probably
> VCRs wont exist so VHS tapes would be unreadable as well.)
>

Thomas T. Veldhouse wrote:
> Mr.Happy <> wrote:
>> here is a real world test, the toughest of them all:
>> let's see if 35mm negatives survived the flooding better than
>> digital. This includes unprocessed rolls of film, film still inside
>> cameras, negatives stored in grandpa's basement and uncle Lou's
>> attic, photo albums, 16mm&VHS videos, etc.
>> vs.
>> photos stored on CDs, DVDs, Zip disks, etc.
>> SD/xD cards(whether inside the camera or not), etc.
>>
>> I bet 100 years from now if anyone finds a CD/DVD or an SD card
>> on the premises once known as New Orleans they will not know what
>> to do with it or how to read it as the OS, software, etc. will long
>> since have gone out of use and no one will know how to work with the
>> file formats just as now 99% dont know how to work with CP/M, DOS,
>> UNIX, etc.(how many here have used Windows 1.0 - 3.11?); However, if
>> negatives are found in good condition, photos could be made.(probably
>> VCRs wont exist so VHS tapes would be unreadable as well.)
>>
>
> The original COMMON formats that we saw in the late 80s and early 90s:
>
> 1. GIF
> 2. Bitmap
> 3. JPEG
>
> They are all still in use today. I would throw TIFF in there, but I
> am not sure when they first surfaced, but I remember them from quite
> a way back.
>
> My point ... it might be hard to find something to read the media,
> but I don't think they will ever have any trouble with the image
> format.

I agree.

What will save the formats, in my opinion, is the need for
historical/documentary continuity.
Millions of important historical and newsworthy photos are archived as tiffs
and jpegs. Terabytes of news websites are archived (have you noticed that
CNN article links from YEARS ago are still viewable?). While they may not
feel compelled to keep software around for your family photos, there will
still be a need to read those same formats that are archived all over the
world. The side benefit will be the existence of software for us lowly,
non-historical types.

Brian Baird wrote:
> Please don't feed the trolls.

I don't think that's a troll... -Just someone thinking about longevity.
It's a worn-out topic...but not a troll.

"Mr.Happy" <> wrote in message
news: oups.com...
SNIP
> I bet 100 years from now if anyone finds a CD/DVD or an SD card
> on the premises once known as New Orleans they will not know what
> to do with it or how to read it as the OS, software, etc. will long
> since have gone out of use and no one will know how to work with the
> file formats just as now 99% dont know how to work with CP/M,
SNIP

Hey, I've still got a CPM machine in perfect working order. Only if you want
something read from a 5 1/4 in drive or an 8 in one you'll have to bring
your own along as my machine only has a 3 1/2 in floppy (with 400K storage
capacity) drive.
I'm sure one of the other readers could supply.

Gerrit - Oz