Thursday, July 05, 2007
History
One of my favorite shows on TV is back for its summer season, History Detectives. Its about some researchers who meet someone with an artifact (has ranged from cannons to belt buckles to 3D projection screens) and they try to find out the real history of that artifact. It's really interesting.
This week they talked with some lady with a story (and medallion) about her great grandfather who supposedly had received a medal made of metal from the Liberty Bell. It turns out that it was probably true, but that wasn't what struck me. What struck me was when the lady showed the researcher a photo of her ancestor. It got me to thinking that I'll be lucky to be able to look at photos I took a few years ago.
I've ranted about this before, but the digital age is really going to hurt history. I still use my original digital camera, a Toshiba PDR-M1. It takes nice photos but the storage it uses is just about obsolete. It uses a SmartCard with a 3.5" floppy adapter. I've started the change over to a Mac and the Mac has neither a 3.5" floppy, nor is there any software available to support the adapter if I added a drive.
In this case, I can still access the old photos since I kept them backed up on CDs - but for how long? First, the CDs will degrade to the point where I can't read them. Second, eventually there won't be CD readers to be had, and if you doubt that, try to find an 8-track player, a reel-to-reel recorder or a 5.25" floppy drive these days. All of which I've used for archival storage in the past. (OK, in my case it was an Exatron Stringy Floppy instead of the 8-track, but you get my drift.)
I was also thinking about when my cubicle neighbor brought in photos - digitally taken and ink jet printed - of his new kid. Those prints may last a few years and hopefully, he'll keep his digital storage updated. But where his folks can pull a photo out of an old shoe box and look it and remember, in 40 years he'll be lucky to have an old computer still around that will read those photos he took.
How well are your digital mementos stored?
