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Bit Rot Stalks Your Digital Keepsakes

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the oh-if-all-the-things-lost-were-found dept.

axlrosen writes "The NYTimes has an article about the problems of digital archiving. How many of your digital memories will still be around 50 years from now, considering lost disks, incompatible formats, hard drive crashes, fading CD-Rs, etc.? Unfortunately Peter Briggs' solution won't work for most of us. The only real way to make sure that your grandkids get to see your digital photos is to make real photographic prints from them. (When I bought my Mom a digital camera I installed Picasa for her, and made sure she knows to order real prints of all the pictures she wants to survive through the ages...)"

2 of 535 comments (clear)

  1. Boingboing.net article contents by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Saturday, November 6, 2004

    Alien v Predator script saved by Internet pirates
    Amazing anaecdote from Peter Briggs, the author of the screenplay for Alien Versus Predator.

    I wrote "A vs P" originally - oh, God...did you hear that? I actually said "A vs P". I hate that thing...it's like "T2" or "LXG"! Anyway, I wrote it on an Amstrad computer, which was about one step above a Univac Room Filler. In '92 I swapped to an Apple Mac, which I've used ever since. And I ended up losing the Amstrad disk, which was some weird, unreadable proprietary brand anyway. It wasn't until whoever it was transcribed it and pirated it onto the web years later, that I was able to cut-and-paste it into Final Draft and have an electronic copy again. So, thank-you, Internet Leaker, wherever you were!

  2. Re:Umm by pyro101 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hundreds of years? Have you seen the fade on photos 50 years ago, 100 years ago? These are even supposed to be the cherrished chemical grail that will make photos last forever. Would you like to know what photographers do with photos/film that they want to last for years, put them in a pitch black room insde of binders in drawers, that are rarely opened. The room is controlled both for humidity and temp. I'll take buying a new HDD every 6 months to that. Then you can print new prints every 10 years and abuse them to hearts wishes, not have to place the photo over there since it is too close to the sunlight, or go rabid if a kid tears up a $.20 peice of paper.