Re: Storing Images

[wilcox@umcc.umcc.umich.edu (Ken Wilcox)]

I don't think the question is if CDs will be readable in 200 years, OR if
CD recorded and images can be "upgraded" to better storage means but rather
WILL it be done.

My guess is that it will be done for FAMOUS images or for WELL KNOWN
photographer's work, but what about the everyday images that we don't think
much about now, but might be treasured at a later time. Did you ever help
clean out the great grandparents house after they died and find old
photographs "filed" in the back of closet or in the attic. These photos may
have meant little to the original owners but my be quite valuable to new
"finders" Would _these_ images have been transferred to new storage means?

If they were not prints but (in the future) Kodak CDs, would the finders go
to the considerable expense of converting them? Perhaps you of I would, but
what about the "average" person?

Archive your images on Kodachrome of well printed black and white prints!

kw

>At 09:25 PM 8/16/97 -0400, Dan Cardish wrote:
>
>>Do you think that 200 years from now people will have technology that can
>>read your CDs?  Can you read an 8 inch floppy that was made maybe 10 years
>>ago?   Or even a 5 1/4 floppy?
>
>People making this argument tend to forget that CD's and 8 inch floppies
>are very different, because very, very few 8 inch floppies were made.  Even
>so, one can still find businesses that will recover data from 8 inch
>floppies for a price.  5 1/4 inch floppies were tremendously more rare than
>CD's, but I have a working 5 1/4 inch drive and so do lots of other people.
> As for CD's, barring some sort of catastrophe, I fully expect them to be
>readable 200 years from now.  Billions of CDs have been made.  It's likely
>that people will still be interested in things recorded on them in 200
>years and will be willing to pay to read them.  Therefore, barring some
>catastrophe, a means of reading them will still exist.
>
>In any case, Michael only needs to be able to read his CD's until the next
>form of archival storage comes along -- by then he'll probably be able to
>transfer hundreds of them to a single device.

- ----
Ken Wilcox                                Carolyn's Personal Touch Portraits
LHSA, MEA, LAW                         preferred---> <wilcox@umcc.umich.edu>
                                              <kwilcox@genesee.freenet.org>