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The Dead Media Project
mrbill writes, "One of the most interesting things I've seen in a long time is
the Dead Media Project
, about forms of information storage that are now 'dead' or
obsolete. Lots of cool stuff; wire records, television in England
in the 20s, pneumatic tube systems, etc." This is pretty nifty; it's inspired by Bruce Sterling's Dead Media Manifesto.
It's much worse then that. The estimates are that more then 90% of all silent features no longer exist in any form, and that around 50% of all films made before 1950 are lost. Certainly one reason why so many films were lost is due to the fragile nature of the films. Another interpretation of what happened is that these works were destroyed because they existed only as closely held copies, by companies that didn't appreciate their value.
Here is an example of how a single shortsighted business decision resulted in a huge cultural loss.
Around 1978, the Technicolor corporation stopped using the dye imbibition process.
Dye imbibition printing was the first commercially successful color movie process. With this process, instead of shooting a single color negative, the camera contained three negatives, and color filters. The result was three sets of negatives, one for red, one for green, and one for blue.
To make the final prints, each of the three negatives had to be individually cut and assembled to make a final negative. Then the negatives were printed onto a special film stock called "matrix" film, and developed using a special chemical process that hardened the film in proportion to the exposed silver content, then washed away both the silver and the unhardened emulsion. The result was that instead of a visible image on the matrix film, the color density was represented by emulsion thickness. Finally, these three matrix films were used as printing plates to transfer dye to the final release films, one color at a time, cyan, magenta, and yellow. The thicker parts of the matrix would transfer more dye, and the result was "Glorious Technicolor." Modern color film uses organic dye couplers, which tend to fade over time. Because Technicolor was using a printing process, they had their choice of what dyes to use, and they chose very bright, intense, fade resistant, acid based dyes. A properly made Technicolor print from 1939 looks the same now as it did the day it rolled off the printer over 60 years ago.
When color negative film was invented, the process changed slightly. Instead of making a matrix film from each of three negatives, all three matrices were made from the same color negative, using different color light filters to pass the desired color.
This process was very gentle on the negatives. A single matrix could be used to print hundreds of release prints, so the original negatives only had to be run through a printer occasionally when a new matrix needed to be made. The matrix stock itself was estar based -- an extremely strong, durable film stock that does not deteriorate over time like nitrate and acetate film.
When Technicolor shut down their dye imbibition production line, they were left with warehouses of matrix film; the printing plates for nearly every feature film ever printed in Technicolor, all meticulously cataloged and carefully stored.
In many cases, the matrices represented the last existing color record of the films. Color negative film, especially early color negative film, fades away over time, and release prints wear out, but the black and white matrices were completely stable. In many cases, the original nitrate negatives for many color features had already turned to dust, leaving the matrices as the ONLY existing preprint material available for countless films.
These matrices could have lasted nearly forever. Now that Technicolor has revived the dye imbibition process (The new, beautiful re-issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window is in true Technicolor), had Technicolor saved their matrices, they would have the ability right now to reprint nearly every film that they had ever made. In perfect color.
Instead, seeing no use for this "obsolete media", they destroyed them all.
Now, the cost of restoring a single Technicolor film, if it can even be done, can run into the millions of dollars. The result is that it is hardly ever done, except for a very few extremely high profile films, like, for instance, "Gone With The Wind" or "Rear Window". What a loss.
References:
"Technicolor Movies: The History of Dye Transfer Printing", Richard W. Haines. McFarland & Company, 1993.
A site devoted to Technicolor Movies
The home page of a modern-day dye transfer artist
The wire was made of stainless steel and was incredibly tough. I have a lot of recording wires. I defy you to break one with your bare hands. It'll cut your hand to the bone if you try.
... the recommended (and only) way to splice a recording wire was with a square knot!
... it's just a stainless steel wire. no plastic base to deteriorate. No oxide to flake off. Just smooth, corrosion-proof, stainless steel. There is also no "tape hiss", because there are no individual magnetized particles. Just continuous wire. It's one of the best archival media ever invented. I have 50 year old wire recordings that sound absolutely fresh and new.
... yep ... dead media. Unfortunately.
They could break around SPLICES though
Wire recordings have the advantage that they can last forever
The disadvantages of wire recordings were that the format was mono-only, for obvious reasons, and the frequency response was limited.
But the recordings last forever. You can't say that about recording tape, CDRs, or DVDs.
The recorders, however, are old tube devices that have to be maintained like an old tube radio. -- tubes and capacitors need to be periodically checked and replaced, and god forbid I should have a crucial mechanical part break
You're thinking of the long-discussed issue of how to label nuclear waste which may be toxic for thousands of years (ignoring that deposits of poisonous elements are toxic forever, such as the arsenic in Bangladesh water wells which were created as a safe alternative to surface water with germs). Sandia actually had some possible messages created: Expert Judgement on Markers to Deter Inadvertent Human Intrusion into the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant
That kitten will be suffering from Post Pnumatic Stress Syndrome. (Oh my god, what a terrible joke.)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
I've long argued that this newfangled Internet thing won't really take off until a parallel network of pneumatic tubes is in place at every desktop.
The Internet's big flaw is its inability to trransport, say, kittens or french fries. Right now, if you want french fries over the 'net, you need to place an order which is then delivered by a person. Pneumatic tubes would make it possible to eliminate all human interaction.
With efficient digital switching systems in place, today's pneumatic tube networks could be made efficient enough to handle fully-automated person-to-person routing of the cargo cylinders.
Kittens direct to the desktop.
I overheard a funny story at last year's Atlanta Linux Expo. Seems that many years ago this company wanted to rewire the computer room without bringing the system down. So they got to the part of the room where the drums were located and needed to get into the floor panels underneath them. Now, if you've never seen a drum drive, it's similar to a big winchester disk only it uses a large drum spinning at fantastic rpms and the read/write head moves laterally across the face of the drum. We're talking massive amounts of angular momentum. The idea was to pick the whole thing up with a forklift, move it to one side then lift up the floor plates to do whatever they needed do there. (How many of you see this coming?) Now if you've ever done the experiment in physics class with the rotating bike wheel, you'll know that things with lots of rotational intertia don't wanna change axis of rotation very much (think gyroscope). They picked it up just fine, but when the forklift started to wheel around to move the drum off to the side, it promptly started to stand on one leg in order to maintain its rotational axis. Fortunately, the forklift operator saw what was happening just in time and spun back around before the whole thing tipped over and went bouncing around the computer room.
Admit nothing, deny everything and make counter-accusations.
Someone should start a project that should rescue dead formats also. I'm assuming if you're getting some picture off a 20 year old tape, it's not going to be in PNG format. Or what about spreadsheets from old programs? There should be a way to convert this stuff into a new format so we have it available. Is anyone aware of a repository for "current" file formats, such as MP3's, Word97 documents, JPG's, Gif's, Png's all in one location? Gathering this information NOW would be easier than gathering it in 10 years, and will prevent information from becoming lost, even though we have the file.