What stands a better chance of surviving 50 years from now, a framed photograph or a 10-megabyte digital photo file on your computer's hard drive? The concern for archivists and information scientists is that, with ever-shifting platforms and file formats, much of the data we produce today could eventually fall into a black hole of inaccessibility.
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Member since:2005-06-29
It may be solvable on a personal level if you stick to it, but not in general. Where are you going to find legacy applications in the future? Or even guarantee there is a virtual machine to run them?
Anyway, this is already happening now. I have a few examples, related to messaging. One is a huge archive of instant messages stored by Miranda in one large file nobody understands (last time I checked there was no export feature), or an SMS archive stored on the iPhone (it seems to use sqlite format but that isn't helping much), or an RTF file generated by yet another software that is only readable on Windows... Time passes and you inevitably give up on that because there's just no time to go back to installing virtual machines or try to make existing software to convert from the old formats to newer ones. Sadly, he may be right.
Member since:2005-06-29
Member since:2006-07-01
Member since:2005-11-10
Member since:2005-07-08
Yep, but moving to open data formats and standards when archiving and preserving important documents is still a huge step, and among the most important steps forward in solving the problems mentioned. Proprietary, locked and old data formats are likely and by far the biggest problem in the whole issue.
Like the article says, many archives and national governments have moved from prorietary data formats to open data formats for this exact reason.
But, of course, for example, CDs and magntic tapes may still corrupt over time etc.etc.
Member since:2008-06-18
you're so right kroc. Even a very recent format is unusable: an archive from WindowsXP's built-in backup tool for example can't be used in Vista. If a format from one generation can't even be used then indeed we're looking at a black hole.
Isn't this basically why the ODF project exists? AFAIK it only supports openoffice like apps but is their goal (at least) eventually to include all kinds of data like email, IM's even backup archives? Or is there perhaps another project with those goals?
Rob
Member since:2006-11-13
Indeed, that does solve the file format problem, but that's not the only problem.
Problem solved.
Clever idea, but you still sit with a "what medium" issue. For example. Lets say we use VM's for the legacy applications. And 1000's of SATA hard drives to store all the data.
Who says we will be able to read data from a SATA drive in 50 years? I have stacks of 5.25" floppies in my garage. So the data is there, but I don't have the hardware (10 years down the line) to read that data anymore? We could have a similar problem in 50 years
with SATA hard drives.
The other problem is failing hardware. You store valuable data on a 1 Terabyte drive for future use. The drive goes faulty - you loose an unbelievable about of data in one go. Books and other printed material don't have that vulnerability.
This is actually a serious issue...
Member since:2006-06-29
The other problem is failing hardware. You store valuable data on a 1 Terabyte drive for future use. The drive goes faulty - you loose an unbelievable about of data in one go. Books and other printed material don't have that vulnerability.
What about fire? Or any other kind of natural disaster? Obviously if your house burns down your drive will burn too, but it's much easier to back up all of your data onto new drives than it is to "back up" your books and other physical documents.
Member since:2008-06-18
maybe the problem is solved. Let's take a file from several generations ago: say a book report originally done on a 5.25 floppy with a Commodore 64 or Apple2c computer.
My old floppies actually still work and are even writable still, so the argument that the medium isn't trustworthy doesn't fly here. So let's assume that I no longer have the machines nor a hard-copy print out to just type it all over again like a scribe back in the day. With this scenario how would a person go about getting that data from the 5.25 floppy and being able to either use it again or at least view it so it can be printed or exported etc?
Off the top of my head I think one would need:
a) a 5.25 floppy drive
b) software to read it which would probably be in PASCAL I think those machines used back then.
c) would an emulator work? I think those only use ROM files so they are kind of "dumb" for lack of a better term.
I think that is a realistic example for this general problem we are discussing.
Member since:
2005-07-06
As long as the file specification is open source, the most important file types will be usable in the future. One might consider to store a few virtual machines with legacy applications to open such older files.
Problem solved.