[Leica] Re: File format converting

[abridge at gmail.com (Adam Bridge)]

Hmmm - I'm not sure I'm in complete agreement with you assessment of
storage solutions. I'm STUNNED that your 8 track magnetic tapes became
unreadable so quickly. Stored properly, rewound periodically etc
magnetic tapes are pretty decent although their storage density isn't
nearly what one can cram onto a DVD these days.

Of the floppy disk varieties only the 8" would give me difficulty
mounting. 5" drives are common and all varieties of 3.5" are still
common. On my Mac I can still read original versions of Mac software
written for the "512k Fat Mac". CDs of all ilks don't seem to be a
problem and I don't anticipate them being a problem since the
specification for all optical media which has come afterward have
reading CDs as a part of backwards compatibility.

On 8/15/06, Lawrence Zeitlin <lrzeitlin@optonline.net> wrote:
>
> On Aug 15, 2006, at 8:23 AM, lDon wrote:
>
> > Larry,
> > No, it is not brain surgery but you have to have some knowledge and
> > choose
> > opportune moments to change formats.  For example, the Blue-Ray format
> > appears to be winning the new DVD wars so in a year or so I will buy a
> > burner and reburn all my CD's and DVD's to that format.  I suspect
> > that CD's
> > only have a couple of years life left before you start to see non
> > backward
> > compatible DVD/Blue Ray reader burners on computers.  As the music
> > industry
> > goes completely online rather than CD there will be the same
> > pressure to
> > have a CD drive as there is currently to have a floppy drive on new
> > computers.
> >
> > Therefore, all those CD's that John Q has had burned at the drug
> > store will
> > be mostly useless coasters in ten years.  The sad part is that John
> > Q has
> > faithfully stored copies in the safety deposit box and they will be
> > safe,
> > but mostly useless in twenty years.
> >
> > My question to the computer literate would be what is going to
> > replace USB
> > or 1394 connections?  Will Wi-Fi take over so no cables at all?
> >
> > Don
>
>
> Don,
>
> I know the pain of converting one file format to another. In the 60s
> I faced the problem of converting the whole data base of U.S Merchant
> seaman's accident and injury records from IBM cards to computer
> readable tape. The 1.5 million 80 column cards were delivered to me
> in a moving van. I had the task of feeding the cards in small batches
> to a card reader where they would get transfered to my university's
> mainframe and written to tape. The only available machine time was
> after midnight on Jewish holidays.
>
> In a few years the 8 track tape was unreadable, so the data was
> rewritten to 8" floppy discs. Eventually it was transfered to 5"
> discs and then 3.5" discs. A roomful of them. Fortunately we missed
> the 2" disc period. (Yes, there were 2" floppy discs.) Finally when
> CD burners became available, the data was written on those lovely
> little platters and now occupy only a 5'  long shelf.  Why did we
> keep this data so many years? They offered the entire medical history
> of 180,000 seamen, working in a controlled environment, for their
> whole career. It was (and still is) invaluable for researchers.
>
> The interesting thing is that each format had a half life of about 10
> years. If you wrote a file on a specific medium when it  first became
> widely available, twenty years later you would be hard pressed to
> find a reader for that medium. The first Mac, introduced in 1984
> (Remember the hammer swinging commercial?) marked the general
> adoption of the 3.5" disc. By 2004 it was hard to find a new computer
> which would accept such discs. Burnable CDs are about halfway through
> their life span. DVDs probably have 15 years to go. Blue-Ray may be
> the successor but I still have a Sony BetaMax in the garage. You
> can't be sure until it sells for less than $100 at WalMart. Vertical
> writing on magnetic media, holographic recording in solid plastic,
> etc. are still in the laboratory but you can't be sure which one will
> break free in the near future. Perhaps writing on tea leaves.
>
> The cable connection problem is minor compared with the recording
> medium wars. RS 232 connectors are still being used 50 years after
> they were first introduced. The dual pronged electrical wall plug is
> over 100 years old. The Brits use the same bayonet socket they did
> when Swan invented the light bulb. USB and Firewire connections will
> probably still be around but they may carry different information at
> different speeds. Wi-Fi is already showing signs of age and the IR
> connection that was heralded as the future of wireless inter
> connection has already disappeared.
>
> So keep your precious image fiiles in CD or DVD format for at least
> the next ten years. You will have plenty of  time to save the files
> on any new format that emerges. Thankfully digital files can be
> transfered without too much loss of data. Besides, if faced with data
> medium obsolescence, John Q can have his drugstore CDs transfered to
> new image storage media by any number of commercial firms if he is
> willing to pay the price. You can still get it done with 8 track
> computer tapes and big floppy discs. I've even had my 8 mm movies
> converted to DVDs.
>
> Larry Z
>
>
>
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