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Digital Domesday Defies Doom

Posted by michael on from the obsoletion-defeation dept.

Hulver writes "The BBC Domesday project, originally completed in 1986 and under threat (as reported in this old slashdot story) has had its data recovered. The contents of the laserdiscs have been put on DVD, and new programs written so that PCs can access the data. Interestingly, most of the images and films were not recovered from the laserdiscs, but were instead re-digitised from the original analog films at a higher resolution than the laserdiscs contained. Full details of the recovered data are at the Public Record Office website."

10 of 176 comments (clear)

  1. Something else this reminds me of by Raul654 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This article reminds me of something else I read - that the DOE is currently paying good money for people to help design a warning for Yucca Mountain (the giant nuclear storage facility out in Nevada). That one has to last as much as 100,000 years, albeight it has to store a lot less information (stay the F*** out). I wonder what kind of overlap there would be between the two?

    --


    To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
    --E.C. Stanton
    1. Re:Something else this reminds me of by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Here's the funny thing though..

      Unless we go through World War III and end up as scattered tribes of man, this warning is useless.

      It's much more likely that we'll continue to progress, socially and technologically. In that case, the warning is moot - even if the United States falls, Yucca is common knowledge right now. It's doubtful everyone who's heard if it would be eliminated. It's also doubtful that all English speakers of the world will be eliminated. As such, a big giant, "STAY THE FUCK OUT! RADIOACTIVE BADNESS INSIDE!" sign would work fine.

      If, by some chance of Fate, the world is decimated, and we end up with scattered tribes who can't figure out English.. Then, no offense - who the hell cares? I'd say there's a bit more to worry about than Random Tribe X being wiped out due to their stupidity and penchant for glowing green rods.

      All in all, this is nothing more than politics ("Hey, Eco-nuts! We're being responsible!") and a waste of taxpayer's money. (See the above.)

    2. Re:Something else this reminds me of by burns210 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      " This article reminds me of something else I read - that the DOE is currently paying good money for people to help design a warning for Yucca Mountain (the giant nuclear storage facility out in Nevada). That one has to last as much as 100,000 years, albeight it has to store a lot less information (stay the F*** out)."

      The cool thing about that project is, they can't say "stay the f*** out" because in 100,000 years people won't be speaking english, or if they somehow did, it would have evolved so much that the warning wouldn't mean anything... This project has to use nonverbal, non-language based warnings, something that would scare you away....

      i am actually reminded of Planet of the Apes, with all the scarecrow looking guys were hangin to warn apes away from the forbidden land....

  2. But where is it...? by mccalli · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I submitted the original Domesday story (the old one referred to), and I noticed this new bit of news yesterday.

    The first thing that struck me when I went over was...where's my copy? This was put together as an educational tool using public money, but now there's only one copy of it in Kew Gardens, London? Why can't I just download it? All the data's public domain anyway.

    As it happens, I don't live that far from Kew Gardens and so will probably go to see this. But what I'd really like to do is download the lot and use it as a referece tool at home. Or perhaps accessible online.

    Incidently, no word on the formats used to rescue it. It now has a Windows interface - good news, but what about people running other things? That's not a trite statement - they already came close to losing it once in just fifteen years, and in fifteen more years' time I'll guarantee you that it won't be XP on people's desktop. Need to have the formats available so that people can write their own interfaces to it.

    Cheers,
    Ian

  3. Great idea! by Raul654 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think you've hit on a really insightful idea. I'm reminded of a quote from Newsradio: "You can't take something off the Internet - it's like taking pee out of a pool."

    The guarenteed way of protecting data against time is to make lots and lots of copies. The internet is the perfect medium for that. So yes, why don't they put it on the internet?

    --


    To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
    --E.C. Stanton
  4. Re:Your forget one thing though by Raul654 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sorry for another reply to my own post, but here's a great resource for seeing how the language has changed over time. It has .wav readings of beowulf. The reason I keep citing beowulf (no, I don't have some computer-cluster fetish) is that it is basically the only surviving example of old-english, or so I was taught. If you listen to it, you can really see how in just 1200 years, the language has totally changed.

    --


    To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
    --E.C. Stanton
  5. If this system were off on a planet somewhere by matty · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...in a perfect vacuum, and someone discovered it thousands (millions?) of years later, would it still work? (provided there was power for it, some type of solar, perhaps?)

  6. I made that... by ratbag · · Score: 2, Interesting

    well, I made some of the entry for the village of Wickenby, near Lincoln, with a childhood friend, Ann. We both had BBC computers at home so we sort of got co-opted into typing some stuff. As children of farmers we concentrated on that side of life in the area. Sweet innocent times...

    Rob.

  7. Another copy at "RetroBeep" at Bletchley Park? by LouisvilleDebugger · · Score: 3, Interesting

    RetroBeep, a retrocomputing museum at Bletchley Park (near Milton Keynes, close to London) has the VL-reader and a BBC micro. The proprietor (John Sinclair, whose son is also active at the site) discussed the Domesday project when I was there in May 2003. I'm not sure if there's a copy of it there, but they did have the hardware, and were trying to connect one device to the other.

  8. Re:Here come the "they mispelled Doomsday" posts! by dirkx · · Score: 2, Interesting
    You may want to consult: http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/ for the authoritative spelling. Which is indeed 'DomesDay'. For those who did not have history at school:
    The King wanted to know what he had, and who held it. The Commissioners therefore listed lands in dispute, for Domesday Book was not only a tax-assessment. To The Kings grandson, Bishop Henry of Winchester, its purpose was that every "man should know his right and not usurp another's"; and because it was the final authoritative register of rightful possession "the natives called it Domesday Book, by analogy from the Day of Judgement"; that was why it was carefully arranged by Counties, and by landowners within Counties, "numbered consecutively ... for easy reference".

    Also note that in england at that time domesday was a regular, repeating, day on when judicial decisions were announced which essentially could not be appealed. Just like the book could not. So one can argue of the christian judgement referenece is all that accurate and if it was not the other way round; the christian references was named after the every day scheduled judgement day in normal life.

    Perhaps.

    Dw