Digital Storage To Survive a 25-Year Dirt Nap?

AlHunt writes "I've been tasked with finding a way to bury digitally stored photographs in a small underground time capsule to be opened in 25 years. It looks like we'll be using a steel vessel, welded closed. I've thought of CDs, DVDs, a hard drive, or a thumb drive — but they all have drawbacks, not the least of which is outdated technology 25 years from now. Maybe I'll put a CD and a CD-ROM drive in the capsule and hope that the IDE interface is still around in 25 years? Ideas and feedback will be appreciated."

Comments

Forward Compatibility

[flaming error]

> I've been tasked with finding a way to bury digitally stored photographs

Print them out.

Read With Eyes

[marcansoft]

Nothing beats a paper hard copy.

Re:But...

[veganboyjosh]

Ok, so print them out on a high quality printer, and then shoot them with a film camera.

Re:SATA, not IDE

[YttriumOxide]

"Canadian French" (spoken by French Canadians) is very similar to French, however not exactly identical. I'd say it's a similar level of difference to "English" and "American English", in that they're completely mutually intelligible (differing accents aside), except for the occasional word that makes the other side say, "uh, what?"

Even though I've never even been to Canada, I actually prefer Canadian French to French French (I prefer English to American English though) as it tends to be more logical.
There are different dialects of French even within Canada though, and some are closer to the Swiss French, while others are closer to French French. Numbers tend to be the big giveaway - 70, 80, 90 = septante, huitante/octante, nonante vs soixante-dix, quatre-vingt, quatre-vingt-dix. I personally find it much easier to say "dix-neuf cent nonante-neuf" than "dix-neuf cent quatre-vingt-dix-neuf" when referring to the year I first visited Paris since the latter seems like far too much of an exercise in mathematics just to figure out what someone is saying ("quatre-vingt-dix-neuf" being 99, is "four-twenty-ten-nine" (multiply four by twenty, add ten, add nine)).