Examples of Obsolete File Formats?

reedk writes "I was having a discussion with my boss about long-term archives, and we got on the topic of older files becoming un-readable by newer versions of software. Not only are those old Ami pro files unreadable by today's common word processors, but I have heard that newer version of Office can't consistently open very old versions of Office documents. With the increasing retention periods being forced by current and coming regulations, this could become a problem of compliance in the future. We want to pursue this topic, but to build support for it internally, I am looking for examples of older file formats that are no longer readable by newer version of the same software or due to the market death of the product. If true, this would lend a lot of force behind moving to products that have an open file format. Can Slashdot readers come up with examples of this, or ways they have had to get around these kinds of problems?"

Comments

Simple

[jZnat]

Formats that are worth using for old (and sometimes new) documents:
* RTF (quite universal)
* PDF (somewhat universal, will always have the same formatting)
* Plaintext (never becomes unreadable unless the file's character set ceases to exist somehow)

Note...

[Otter]

If true, this would lend a lot of force behind moving to products that have an open file format.

Well, yes and no. Let's say Ami Pro file format were fully documented. (I have no idea whether it is or isn't.) At what point would it be worthwhile for your company to actually write a file converter? I can certainly imagine a situation where it might be a cost-effective thing to do, but it's not the kind of thing that anyplace I've ever worked does routinely.

And from a retention point of view, I don't know if you _want_ whatever scumbag lawyer is subpoenaeing documents from you to be able to demand that you write him a converter. I'd rather be able to say "Here are our VisiCalc files. Enjoy!"

RFC 2397

[tepples]

I don't understand where you're going there unless the spec allows embeded raster images?

It's straightforward to make an <img /> or <object /> element that contains raster image data. Look up the data: URL scheme.

Re:I happen to have a computer museum at my dispos

[Johnny Mnemonic]

I'd guess that CD-R is here to stay, given that it shows 0 signs of becoming unsupported on newly manufactured HW.

20 years ago, you could have said the same thing about a 3.5" floppy. When the iMac first came out in, what, 98, it was widely denigrated for not having a floppy. It's now getting increasingly harder to get floppy drives on PCs, and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they were special-order in another 5 years. In 10 years, your .sig file will be larger than the contents of a 1.4 MB floppy, so why would anyone include them on new hardware?

I think the only thing to do about data like this is to keep in on a fileserver, and then move the data as the server gets older. As long as it talks tcp/ip, you'll probably be able to get it off--that's one standard that's not going away for a long time, and will be backwards compatible when it does.