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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 I've thought of CDs, DVDs, a hard drive, or a thumb drive — but they all have drawbacks, not the least of which is outdated technology 25 years from now.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."
Change up IDE for SATA and you might have a chance, since SATA is relatively new and SATA2 is backwards compatible with SATA1, etc.
Seriously, just print them. Unless we somehow evolve new sensory organs in the next 25 years, I suspect that photographs won't be rendered useless through obsolescence. They can always scan them into new digital files afterwards.
> I've been tasked with finding a way to bury digitally stored photographs
Print them out.
AC power should still be around.
How about a small digital picture frame? That way you could throw in your own flash drive, and the pictures would come with their own display medium. I'm sure they'll still have AA batteries 25 years from now.
just bury the entire PC. Surely AC power will still be around in 25 years.
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You can't guarantee that the data will be intact when they open the capsule. Nor can you guarantee that the gear you send will survive.
Seems to me that your best bet is three separate distribution mechanism.
1. CDs AND DVDs (two copies of everything), a small portable DVD player with multiple interfaces - component/composite/s-video out
2. NAS device with at least two disks (two copies of everything) and multiple interfaces - eSATA/SCSI/USB2/FireWire/ethernet(dhcp)/etc.
3. Digital picture frame and a handful of memory modules (two copies of everything)
Ensure that whatever device you send goes complete with power adapter and user manual. In at least two languages.
All there is to do when you're done, is cross your fingers and hope that video displays still operate in two dimensions :)
It really doesn't matter. If you use any popular media the technology will still be around to use it. We live in a big world, and there always geeks who love to collect stuff like that.
put a mac mini and a 15inch LCD monitor in there as well. ;-)
Of all the interfaces that will still be around 25 years from now USB has the best chance. I am not so sure about wether or not the flash memory will hold up. But with the BILLIONS of usb devices out there nowadays I find it hard to believe the format will be gone 25 years from now.
I'd recommend including a device that can actually play back whatever media/content you choose. Then your only worry will be whether you can get the device powered in 25 years. I would imagine that a regular power cord will still plug in (somewhere) even after 25 years.
Give a hand, not a hand-out.
I don't know any digital storage can last 25 years.. Even burned CDs don't last that long (I think their stated lifetime is like 5-10 years). Even the NASA doesn't know, they have a program where they copy their digital archives every 5 years onto new media.
My advice is to use paper or some other material that deteriorates slowly and has been around for at least 25 years..
25 years? That's a pittance in terms of time. Why not high-quality archival prints in hermetically sealed plastic bags? You can even loose laminate the pictures, then vacuum seal the box if you've got the moolah. The archival prints will last at least 25 years, and if you want to be safe you can toss in a dvd/thumb drive/whatever in with it. At least you'd be sure that the ultra cool infrared scanners of the future (which also serve as flying cars) will be able to recover copies of the pictures, even though they wouldn't be pristine copies. For proof of concept, see the recent NYT story about visually etched disks being strewn around the world for 1,000 year archival, although that might be a more ambitious/dubious goal.
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
Just bury anything with a USB 2.0 connection, no way will it be difficult to find a computer with a USB port in 25 years considering all the millions and millions of peripherals that use it.
Between heat and current I am guessing your pics won't last 25 seconds.
Watch out for condensation. Maybe put whatever you do in a few layers of zip-locs, with some anti-dessicant bags or something to keep the humidity down in the final, inside bag.
Probably your best bet is a a combination of several things to try your luck. A USB thumb drive, as the USB interface will probably be around a long time (like USB->parallel adapters even keep the parallel interface alive). But, flash memory might degrade.
I'd probably put a DVD+R disk in (that has an archive layer on it [the better disks you can buy]).
How about a small 2.5" hard drive with a SATA interface?
Do a couple, and one might be readable.
Don't steal. The government hates competition.
If it absolutely, positively has to survive 25 years, it might be worth the expense of getting the photos professionally printed on good quality paper and, if you're worried about the box leaking, laminated. Okay, it's a smartass answer, but those are photos you're going to store, and they're known to last more than 25 years easily.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
Perhaps put the same data in multiple forms: CD, DVD, Blue-Ray, USB key, hard disk, ...
Perhaps even include a complete bootable computer that starts into a web server, serving the images.
And then as the last resort, print-outs of the images.
LCD picture frame. $200. Can be charged with AC power. AA batteries would be even better.
A lot of outdated technologies still exist today that have existed for much longer than 25 years. For example, many legacy programs use Fortran, and it's still quite possible to find ISA to PCI adapters. Considering the high prevalance that IDE has had over the past 15-20 years, it's not unreasonable to assume that someone in the future would be able to find a way to read data off of then outdated technologies. And even then, it would still be reasonable to assume that someone then would have an old computer laying around that would easily read the data.
Assuming the data survives on the actual memory part, I'd go for a USB drive. Peripherals have the best chance for forward compatibility because they are already designed for use with more than one system and therefore it should be fairly easy to get ahold of adapters. Also, you will only need a driver for the final connector interface.
Why not store an entire laptop/ netbook (with battery charger), and have backup CDs along with it? That way the media is always accessible (via the laptop), regardless of if the format is still in use in 25 years in the outside world.
but you could bury it with a basic cheap laptop (with wifi/ethernet & usb) ... put your stuff on the laptop hard drive & duplicate it on a thumbdrive and CD and DVD (all cheap) ... There's simply no way to know for sure what will still be there, but you're covering a lot of bases. Heck, skip the laptop if it's too much and put it on sata disk, CD, DVD and thumb drive ... all are cheap enough.
Remove the battery, but leave the a/c adapter and cable. This way you will have a machine waiting for you to extract the data at a later date.
I would recommend saving a copy of the photos on the hard drive, a dvd copy, a cd copy, and also a usb thumb drive. that way all of your bases are covered.
No. Sandisk says their flash memory archival lifetime is no better than 10 years.
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
So you want digital data, but on a medium that will last? Just include a bunch of punch cards (bonus points if they're made of something that lasts longer than paper)! Or print the data out on good quality paper. Make sure to include instructions on how to decode it, too.
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
I'd suggest using more than one format. Paper + USB thumb Drive + CD-ROM seems like it'd cover the bases pretty well for a 25-year timescale.
(Of course you need to use archival-quality versions of each media where available, and make sure the environment doesn't include any hazards particularly deadly to any one.)
With reasonable men I will reason; with humane men I will plead; but to tyrants I will give no quarter. -- William Lloyd
Use paper and encode your data using something like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Matrix or some other well documented data format. I think there will always be digital imaging devices like scanners and cameras around. Maybe even include decoder sourcecode in OCR friendly print. You're planning for 25 years, but who knows :-)
Might result in a load of paper though... I wonder how much information you could squeeze on high resolution paper in multiple colors.
As the capsule is bound to be perfectly dark the paper might stay in good shape.
CD/DVD media degrades over time. Even the gold-based discs. Proper storage and handling is key. I'd go USB...
25 years is not THAT much, you make the problem sound much harder than it is.
Prints is an obvious solution as already mentioned.
Then, include a couple of CD copies. Forget about putting IDE drives in there. The CD format has been around for more than 25 years, I am sure we will keep using some sort of optical media that will be CD compatible for a few more years. Even if they don't make CD-R compatible drives in 25 years (which i doubt), it will be easy to find an older drive with the capability. Just make sure you use archival-quality media and don't stick any CD-label on it.
Then throw in a usb thumbdrive in case the USB (along with the thumbdrive) survive!
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Sure, we may have hit singularity and have arbitrary electromagnetic wave sensitivity. The patterns on the ink would still be detectable while scanning the spectrum.
I'd suggest replicating them in every format and hardware type you can think of (and afford); also include physical prints. Make sure you label each of the digital storage forms very clearly with details of its interface and format. Every variant you include increases the odds that at least one will remain readily readable in the future.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a skull.
Archive the data in some sane fashion, and then, in 24 years, dig it up and stick in a DVD (or for extra credit, a format that has not existed for the entire time the capsule has been buried.
Another option would be to contact Amazon or Google and ask how much they would charge you to keep the backup live for 25 years and then just bury the account information.
Nerd rage is the funniest rage.
Use multiple formats. Redundancy seems to be the solution to every other storage problem.
Screw digital. Get them printed to archival-grade microfilm and store them in a moisture-proof container. Microfilm is designed to last a minimum of 500 years when kept under the proper (and relatively easy to maintain) condition. All you need is a light source and a good lens to view it. Most of the world's better professional archives use a combo of microfilms and digital archiving to keep stuff around... the microfilm guarantees longevity while the digital copy is easy to search and access.
The 5.25" optical disc format seems to be the most likely to survive, given that the CD doesn't seem to be getting replaced in a physical format anytime soon, and the follow-on products (DVD, HD-DVD, Blu-Ray) all use the same basic format and are backward-compatible due to the low cost of the lasers involved for the previous format(s). Given the preference in the mainstream to keep backward compatibility and the fact that even the fun new terabyte media are in a similar format, this is the best overall bet.
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Alternative title: "How many bullshit redundant replies can you fit in a Slashdot thread?"
25 years isn't too bad... lots of things should work. I hold with those who say "print them..." maybe even in reduced size on some kind of high-resolution media.
Do not overlook flash cards. I know the data in them is stored in tiny capacitors, and the storage time is said to be only "years," but you never know. I was very, very impressed by some tests a magazine did once in which they subjected several brands of flash cards to a number of tests that included dousing them in a cup of coffee and nailing them to a tree. Most of them survived and were readable(!)
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Print out all the binary information on acid free paper so it can be optically scanned in 25 or 2500 years.
If you use paper, SD card, USB memory stick, hard drive, or whatnot it would have to survive being welded into the box, as well as opening the box.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
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It would be entirely possible to make a paper copy of binary data that could easily be read in with the correct software. Of course, the paper you would want to use would be acid-free.
One could simply encode the binary as forward slashes and backward slashes. Or as x's and o's.
But those would be really wasteful.
I've often thought that what would make a really good software contest would be to develop a format to back data up to a paper copy on a laser printer using the best compression possible but with enough error correction and detection to be able to read just about any paper put in that comes out in reasonable shape.
For example, one might use individual pixels on the paper. Or you might want to group several together and treat as a bit. Or use an innovative coding scheme that doesn't just map individual bits to spots on the paper.
I think that a scheme that spreads the information out over the entire paper might be interesting. In other words, the individual bits of a byte and any bits dealing with the error detection and correction would be located remotely from each other.
In such a contest, testing would be easy. Write images of several datasets to paper and then scan the images in after different stages of intentional damage to the paper. For example, you might read two data files back from the pristine paper without doing anything. Another two data sets might come from paper that has been crumpled up into a ball and then flattened. Two more might be from paper that has been moistened. Two more from paper with a tear across the middle. And, finally, make copies of two data sets on an everyday copier and then scan them in and decode.
Rank the results by the numbers of errors, possibly with factors to take in levels of difficulty based on the amount of damage to the paper, and select a winner.
Its not like a CD and thumbrdrive will take up more space than one or the other. If you can convert the photos to a DVD format slide show and include a DVD player, that might stand the best chance of surviving.
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...for the vessel.
And yes, photographic paper and black-and-white images would last the longest.
Hell, I have 9-track tapes that are older than that and I can still read them. I also have 2" quad video from 1965, but I'll save that for a future thread.. :)
But seriously, go tape. DLT, SDLT, mini carts, or 9 track reel.
Wrap up a DLT in a bunch of plastic sheeting and you should be ok. just TAR or CPIO the data, don't use a proprietary tape backup format
If you want to make it REALLY difficult, encode it onto cassette tape at 300baud and include a reader.
Toil is Stupid. Don't be Stupid.
You guys really think technology will change that much? USB interfaces will either still be around or at least some geek will have an old computer with USB lying around. 25 years is nothing. IDE has been around for 22 years and is now only getting scarce, but I can still get my hands on plenty of computers that have them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_Drive_Electronics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floppy_disk
The 3-1/2" floppy has been around for 24 years. What the person is asking is easy. HD, CD, DVD, what ever, you'll be able to read it in 25 years. Well, I would stay away from IDE in favor of SATA. IDE may be hard to get your hands on in 10 years let alone something that works with it in 25. Now if they were shooting for 50 or 100 years, then we could put more than 30 seconds of thought into it.
I think the hardest part of the question is "What digital storage medium lasts 25 years"?
You can pretty much forget about CD-R's & DVD-R's, those get eaten by parasites, USB Flash keys will have a pretty high probability for corruption over such a long period aswell
Depending on the budget and data quantity, i'd go for non re-usable datastorage, CD's (of the non writable kind) are pretty damned resilliant, but might be out of your budget
You could also get ROMS, they tend to last pretty damned long, but data quantity might render this expensive
Basicly, digital storage is very fragile, you might have better luck tossing the pictures online with the cypher for the archive stuck in that capsule instead, but you'd still need a host wich will last 25 years....
The media may survive and be theoretically readable, but nobody will be able to read it. 25 years ago was 1983. The IBM PC was only 2 years old, the PC/XT had just been introduced. The IDE interface you hope will be around in 25 years? It didn't exist then. It didn't appear until 1986, and wasn't standardized (as ATA) until 1994. And it's at this point been all but replaced by SATA (I expect EIDE/ATAPI CD/DVD drives to be completely replaced by SATA ones by next year). The standard disk interfaces 25 years ago? ST-506, ESDI and SCSI. I don't expect changes in drive interfaces to slow down any, so expect in 25 years that even if you include the drive nobody's going to have a controller interface to plug it into. 9-track mag tape, 8" floppies, 5.25" floppies, punch cards, all those were standard digital media 25 years ago and you'd be hard-pressed to find equipment to read the media or computers that can interface with the equipment if you do find it.
I'm willing to bet that DVD-R{W,OM} will still be at least readable in 25 years, for the simple reason that, while the connector interface for the hardware will change, the protocols probably won't - so even if you get some . That said, the other posters are right - never underestimate the archival power of dead trees.
This sig no verb.
Personally, I'm more interested in storage that can survive:
Any one able to help me out?
Many consumer grade photo printers actually produce pictures with significantly shorter lifespans than their digitally stored copies. There was a great comparison a few months back of 6 different printers/papers/inks that varied greatly in their performance at only 6 months.
Now, if you really want to get long term with it, write the binary value of the image out on paper, or even punched in steal. 10101010101 etc... sure, it'll take a whole lot of time, money, and metal, but you could be sure that all that data is going to be around for a lot longer than 20 years ;)
Although, if you're going that route, Microfiche would probably work just as well, along with being cheaper and a lot more compact. It would still leave the person who recovers it the tedious task of recreating the file digitally, but it would last, and you know some undergrad would write get a grant to figure it out and write a thesis on it.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Bit of a weird one I know, but if you want guaranteed data retrieval (barring internet annihilation), why not make a deal with a hosting company to keep a website of yours live for 25 years, and write the URL of it in stone with a date, to be placed underground and dug up in the future?
Two major problems with printing them, for all the Luddites that have replied so far...
First, a single CD will hold 500-1000 images, stored as reasonably high-quality JPEGs. A similar stack of printouts on photo-quality paper would measure up to a foot thick (1000 pictures on 12mil paper).
Second, and perhaps more important if volume doesn't matter, a sheet of paper will break down far faster than a polycarbonate disc when subjected to a moist environment.
Simple solution? Burn a dozen copies of a CD using something like PAR2 redundancy to allow complete recovery if even a tenth of the content remains readable on each CD. Include simple extraction instructions in a more durable form (a note sealed in an acrylic block? an etched nickel tablet? Something like that - Small and to the point). For the naysayers, this involves 25 years, not 2500. We'll still have CD reading drives available then, whether museum pieces or simple due to never-ending backward compatibility in newer optical drives.
Hi. Have a look here: http://www.rosettaproject.org/ That's for 10.000 years +! Maybe there's the odd idea that might help you. I think the best way is to think back 25-50 years and see what has survived (i.e. can still be read). Then extrapolate from that. My current take on it. Put it all on a NetBook like EeePC or Acer Aspire One and bury the whole thing (cheap option, expensive option would be a whole notebook). Make sure you take care of the battery. Research what you have to do to make it survive 25 years. This solution incoorporates all the technology needed to reproduce the images in a digital way. I think there will be some way to interface these devices to technology in 25 years. Cheers Oliver
maybe eepc? or something cheap(price wise) like that... or you can always put everything on a mac mini
2 EeePCs loaded with images in at least JPEG, PNG and TIFF formats, OS of choice and a couple of graphic programs that can convert your images into various formats.
Separate backups on SD cards.
A set of USB to cables.
Also... if it is going to sit in the ground for 25 years, I'd remove the batteries and pack them separately.
Don't forget to pack the chargers.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
...seriously, outdated? They will sell CD/DVD/Blu-Ray combo players for decades still, though my experience with CD-Rs has been strained in the longetivity department. And with USB1/2/3, you think that's going away? Hell, we still haven't been able to kill the keyboard/mouse PS/2 plug, and that one is extremely much less useful. Don't go with HDD interfaces, they could easily change. But the external connectors that people have tons of USB gadgets and CD records of? You got to be kidding me. If it's just readable, we'll have the readers.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Redundancy is the key. Different formats, different technologies, different connection methods. For example, microdrive (Magnetic storage), SD, CD, DVD, and a USB adapter for all formats where applicable.
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/25/0312229
onto acid free paper.
Put it into an air tight bag.
Scan the hex back into the computer of the futere.
As a bonus put the pictures on tape, and seal that as well.
Properly packaged DVDs will last 25 years in the dark in an airtight bag.
Now here is the best idea:
Just put them on the damn internet. you can pull them down as needed and onto whatever media you like.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
what format was around 25 years ago, that is still available today?
now- what was around 50 years ago- that is still available today?
now-- for the hell of it, what's been around since 1844--- and still available today?
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Just use a CD. Do you really think the wonder people of the future won't be able to read it. It would be like us digging up a 1983 5 1/4" disc, would take about 20 minutes for someone to find a drive to read it.
Cruise TT
and bury the password.
I hope your client is prepared to spend tens of thousands of dollars to recover data from these devices.
Imagine what it'd cost to get data recovered from 25 year old media today (even recovering data from a drive that's suffered a head crash yesterday is pricey). Most hard disks that old are totally obsolete; CDs break down; flash loses state without refreshes; batteries fail.
You could conceivably have a USB PROM device designed, but I have no idea if anyone actually sells these.
Plus, as an added bonus, in 25 years whoever opens it up will get to see what it was like to take pictures with a 2D camera that only records in the visible spectrum.
Just chisel it all in stone... We still have people that decrypt the Egyptian Hieroglyphics, so it will work in the future...
OR, just have 2 or 3 formats (2 digital, 1 analog) and the future will adapter their tech to read ours if it is important enough to read.
Otherwise it will just be old trash and they won't even bother. (Oh, haven't thought about that, eh? ;)
Besides, our Ape overlords will want nothing to do with proof oh human intelligence....
--- Relax, that mass muderer is just trying to reduce our carbon footprint, one fetus at a time...
Electrolytic capacitors are used in the power supply filtering of essentially all circuitry currently in use. These components will be present in a number of places on the circuit boards of both disk drives and memory sticks.
The insulating layer between the plates in electrolytic capacitors is formed by electricity-driven chemical action. It gradually degrades over a period of several years. If the capacitor is operated occasionally the operating voltage across it will rebuild the insulating layer. But if it's left unused for too long the layer will degrade to the point that, when power is finally applied, the capacitor will short and (because most of them are hooked across a power supply) fail catastrophically. Like by blowing open and jetting chemical fumes, while shorting out the supply and damaging other components in the current path.
Mechanical moving parts may lose lubrication and spot-weld with time. This also makes storing entire drives problematic.
Recordible CDs usually record on a die layer that will degrade with time.
Some types of flash memory store data as stored charges, which will leak away with time.
So IMHO degradation of the medium itself is likely to be a killer problem. Much more than readability with future devices. (After only 25 years there should still be some working players available for currently widely-deployed standards, even if no new ones are being manufactured. Once you've go the bits read you can transfer them to new media.)
Things I'd consider:
- Integrated circuit memory devices using a technology like fusible link or a crystalline/amorphous transition. (Replace any electrolytic capacitors with ceramic types - which will greatly increase the size of the assembly.)
- CD masters involving actual removal of material - a material inert enough that it will not corrode away with time.
- If you want to store drives for removable media (and convert the caps), check with the manufacturers about what the bearings are like and talk with a mechanical engineer with applicable experience (like mil-spec or space-rated). I'd avoid sealed hard drives, especially those that don't lift the heads off the platters when parked.
Also: Use a coding scheme that has industrial-grade error correction. B-)
One downside to your task is that, with only a 25-year storage time, you'll probably still be alive to be blamed for failures when they open it. B-)
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Nobody seems to have asked the obvious question: how much do you expect whoever opens the capsule to be willing to spend to extract the data?
Generally speaking, you can pull data from media formats (medium) that are 25 years old. If your capsule was to be opened in 50 or 100 years then you'd have a problem, but most media formats that are 25 years old are still readable today. How much effort it would take varies...
If you had a 160/180/320/360KB 5 1/4" floppy disk from 1983, you could even read it by buying an old 5 1/4" drive off eBay, connect it to the same floppy connector that's still in use today, and read the disk directly in Vista. Now, if instead you were trying to read an MFM/RLL hard drive, 8" floppy, magnetic tape, punch card, etc. from that era, then you'd have more of a problem--but it would still be doable.
Also, many companies make specialty products to connect old equipment to new PCs. While I've never seen one, there's probably a company that makes a USB 5 1/4" floppy drive. If push comes-to-shove, you can always buy old equipment to bridge the gap... If I had an MFM/RLL hard drive from 1983, I could always buy an XT or AT from ~1983-1991 (that has an MFM/RLL interface), connect it to a new PC by way of a serial port (well, the new PC will probably have a USB-to-Serial converter) or Ethernet and transfer the data.
Pick a technology that's very well used today and you should be fine reading it 25 years from now. Sure, it'll take some effort & creativity, but it should work. But if you pick a technology that's old by today's standards and you'll have even more trouble reading it in the future...
That being said, I would worry more about the media--whether it will withstand 25 years of isolation, heat expansion/contraction, humidity, etc.
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00
maybe you could simply push the pictures to a lot of sites, if possible even archive.org, and just include some weblinks.
I'd say as the net does not forget very well, you might have a good chance that the pictures will still exist in 25 years ...;)
Otherwise, include multiple media. USB drives (nice standard, pretty ubiquitous, should not go away THAT fast), CD-ROM, DVD, maybe a digital picture frame (why not!) with SD-Card media.
That should cover up 25 years easily. I boot my Linux TV/Video- system (otherwise HD-less, netboot via nfs) of a 5 1/4"-drive that I ripped out of a late 1980s PC. That's pretty close to 25 years ago.
ETCH IT IN CLAY. Any digital media you want to "bury" is going to be "useless" if we recover it in 25 years. If we still have electronics, we will still have your info. If we don't, your info will undoubtedly be destroyed or forgotten in that massive cataclysm. 25 years? Your data will be useless. Think a thousand years from now when we have a new civilizatoin. Think clay tablets.
There is no good reason to put time-capsules underground besides some strange belief that it should be done that way. You're much better putting the contents above-ground inside of a wall, behind a plaque, etc. This way, it is much less likely for there to be water or other sorts of damage that plagues underground storage, you also have a smaller chance of it being lost or forgotten. If secured properly, there should be very minimal risk of tampering.
It would be difficult to go wrong like that. Also, sealed, kept away from light, and kept cool, CDs should last for quite a while, if I understand correctly, which I may not.
Also, I liked the suggestion of including a Mac Mini. :)
That's it! He should store it in the ./ comments!
home
Let the people of the future figure it out, if they're so smart. If you really want to encourage them, just label everything "porn" and leave it at that.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
in "80 MICRO" I have one laying around from 1984 and I can still read the Basic programs that are in it.
Use your head, can't you, use your head,
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I'd suggest putting in a few flash drives, cd's, dvd's, sd card, small laptop sata drive etc. All together they wouldn't be so big, and keep a copy of everything on each.
More important is how they are stored. Put in some kind of dessicant, make sure the container has no acids that will leach out of plastics etc.
In all honesty, time capsules should be coming to the end of their day now - we are coming into the era of permanent online storage.
we used Atari 800, Commodore 64, TRS-80, etc... (well, maybe a little more, circa 1980). Which of the devices mentioned here like USB drives, disk drives, CD, DVD, etc ran on those systems? only diskettes, and today you'd be hard-pressed to be able to read them. I think the best place would be Google, maybe an email account with them!
At least Seiko produces serial EEPROMs with > 50yrs data retention, and are rated for high temperatures (125 degrees C).
Those max out at 64k, though.
You'd probably want to use some sort of EM shielding (Faraday cage or similar) in addition to ESD protection, and thermal shielding to keep the temperature on the surface of the die below 125C during welding, and also carefully choose your burying location.
But, yeah, storing thousands (the OP didn't actually say thousands of photos, did he?) of pictures would require thousands of 64k (k-bit, I believe!) of ICs. I can only imagine the programming effort involved; special jigs that house & power hundreds of PROMs per batch write...
When I grow up, I want to have Christopher Walken hair.
Bury the physical prints of the pictures, burying the digital data makes the problem more complex than it should be.
The best bet is an optical format, as it doesn't have magnetic or electric leakage problems of solid state and magnetic storage. The only problem is that recordable optical media use dyes that have a questionable stability for that kind of time frame. It would be best to get the discs professionally pressed, so that there is no degradable dye used to store the data, but actual physical grooves. You'll have to press a couple thousand copies anyway, so it won't hurt to include several copies in the box. Just make sure you don't heat them up when you're trying to weld the box shut.
"I like systems, their application excepted", George Sand (French)
If you can figure out a way to store digital information for 25 years without migration or emulation, and then retrieve it, you could probably do some bigger things than time capsules.
I'm not so sure if there will be folks around in 25 years who understand CD/DVD/USB technology ... but one thing I will guarantee, they will be wanking off on Internet porn.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
This is assuming, of course, that the media survives. Most CD degradation is due to exposure to UV light, however, so a decent quality CD-R in an opaque box buried in the ground should be okay.
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Full machine, ROM (not EPROM, not EEPROM, not Flash) storage with ECC, and a ROM reader. Leave instructions for powering up the machine: 120VAC at 60Hz sinusoidal, diagram the connector to show hot-neutral-ground. It's pretty hard to not do that right; I get whatever the hell voltage I want out of transformers, and can rectify and then solid-state generate AC at any frequency. That's your best option.
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how many of those pictures are printed (vs. "old-fashioned" chemical photo prints)? Sure, you could half-tone print using good inks on quality paper, and you'd get images like found in 25 year old magazines. But do you want to trust a modern photo printer, using very recent technology, with the only assurance of long term stability being some accelerated aging tests based on assumptions instead of real-world empirical evidence?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Write them to a PROM, and encase it in a radiation-hardened container if you REALLY want it to survive with almost certainty for 25 years. Yes, interfacing may be a problem, but if hardware hackers in 25 years cannot read unencrypted image files from a chip (with a handy included pinout and interfacing guide) then I'd be rather disappointed.
Just bury one of these puppies with it. Then you have the media and the means to retrieve it.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Label it "Porn", seed it in BT, Limewire, etc, and print out the hash you need to search for on good paper stock.
In 25 years when FreeNet has finally caught on, fire it up and download your pictures by the hash.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
work the problem backwards. what storage tech from 25 years ago (1980 for crying out loud, we're not talking that big a gap) has the required capacity, is still widely used (or at least easily used), shows no particular signs of obsolescence, and is physically robust enough to deal with being welded in a steel can for 25 years with possible odd temperature and condensation fluctuations? use that. it's a decent bet it'll still be around and easily usable in another 25 years.
Hell it probably wont be that hard to get old parts then, I know where I work we have parts from computers that are 15 years old or so.
Printing would be a space issue as well as the varying qualities of print sources, commercial or otherwise. It seems odd that nobody mentioned microfilm though, the libraries and newspapers have been using it for far more than 25 years and would surely be able to retrieve from it in the future. In fact retrieval will probably be even easier with advances in scanning technology. It saves space and could easily be saved in a smaller and more optimum storage container within the capsule to prevent decay.
With multiple keys people would be prevented from looking at the data before hand, and a pgp signature would make it difficult for it to be altered (tough 25 years is a long time...)
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I've been copying a box of those great big things to 3 1/2 floppy disks and then on to modern storage media. They're about 18-20 years old and so far have worked wonderfully. Only one in three dozen or so has given data errors.
That will do it.
Why is everyone suggest A format?
Why not store the data on a:
* DVD
* Pile of CDs
* USB drive
* SD card
* xD card
* Hard drive
And a choice few in hard copy.
Seriously... with the price of these things, and the timeframe, surely you can afford to store it on all of these things and put them all in? Plus it'll be fascinating in 25 years time to see how many are still readable... all? None? Some?
That whatever format and protocol you use, it may not be compatible with what we use 25 years from now, or even five years from now.
I used to work for the RI Sec State's office and had frequent discussions with archivists about how to store data for the long term. The solution is to keep migrating it to newer devices.
That said, I believe Kodak makes a burnable CD that will last for 20+ years. You might want to check with them though if I were you, I'd be sure to provide a CD-ROM drive and interface instructions along with electrical signals, etc. in with the disc.
I don't want to thing of the error rate when you will attempt to read the thing.
Not to mention storage technology will have changed, fundamentally changed, twice or three times over the next 25 years just like it has changed over the past 25 years.
Density has gone up enormously as the physical dimensions reduced but the bigger changes were to the actual recording methodology.
Burying it for 25 years means just wasting money.
All of the data may fit onto a portion of a hologram on a single translucent chip read by multicolor lasers.
And won't you feel like a chump sitting at a desk trying to spin some degraded magnetic medium on a spindle after hunting on the equivalent of Antiques.com for some working read-write heads.
Tell them to buy some bigger media every few years.
I still have some articles and data that I wrote/generated in the '70 and '80s but I have moved the information every few years from punch cards, to 5"1/4 diskettes, to 3"1/2 diskettes, to my 5MB HD (enormous at the time,) and so on, and so on, to my USB 1TB back up drive. (Its not the only TB drive I have on my desktop either. [Next drives will be 10+TB drives. [Hopefully we'll have holographic storage in a few years and I can finally get rid of the damn whirring noise.}])
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Why not just write a u/p down on paper. Then upload all your content to some hosting facility and pay them in advance for the next 25 years.
It's not like the web is going to go away.
Just put them on the web, don't tell anyone the URL! Dave
Considering filling the container with an inert gas like nitrogen in order to reduce any wear and tear caused by corrosion. Just make sure that whatever inert gas you pick, unless it is helium or neon, is really inert with respect to the contents of your time capsule.
Kodak guarantees their Gold CD and DVDs for 100 years. I don't know how they can, but that would be your best bet. I don't know what they'd do if they didn't hold up 25 years later, but at least that might make your boss happy. I'm sure you can find other discs from other manufacturers who make archival-quality discs.
Read this: http://www.kodak.com/global/en/service/faqs/faq1632.shtml
Just put in a slip of paper with the url to the flickr album.
I have burned CDs that are already 20 years old that work just fine. All of them. I know there were a few burned CD lots that suffered datarot, but I really doubt that CDs are that fragile. I fully expect those CDs to still be valid 5 years from now (even 20 years from now, to be honest).
Still, redundancy is the key, if you have the space. I am certain there will be ways to read ISO or Joliet format CDs 25 years from now. I could read a 5 1/4 floppy disk today, if I had to (those have lasted over 25 years as well).
Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
In addition to worrying about the data being accessible, it might be prudent to look into filling the capsule with a noble gas to help prevent oxidation of the storage medium.
I have a huge hoard of outdated computer components (mostly from the early 1990s). At one point, ALL of these parts were tested good and working.
But I've noticed that merely sitting around doing nothing, even in a fairly controlled environment, is enough to make older parts DIE, and the death rate is around 50%. I don't know why this is, but the same parts in regular use will typically live a lot longer. IDE controller cards in particular have a near-100% death rate once taken out of service, even if in perfect working order when retired.
Which makes me leery of "bury the whole PC". It might work when it comes back out, or it may have died of idleness.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Just use those 2D binary barcodes and put it on microfiche or etch it onto metal or glass plates. To read the data back you just throw it into a high res flatbed scanner. We already have 1200x1200 dpi scanners, so it seems like a pretty safe way to go. Then people don't need special equipment, just some moderately special software. (I bet Java will be around in some for for 25+ years)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Any device you throw in there to read your media has a pretty good chance of dying a quiet death over the next 25 years. Even one critical hardware failure anywhere from the power supply to the output will require a large repair bill from a specialist.
Also, anything that outputs through a plug (CD-ROM drive, ATA drive, thumb drive, etc) will require an equally antiquated device to playback whatever you store because there's no way anything 25 years from now will be using s-video, firewire, or usb. Yes, there may be widespread adoption of Firewire 13 or Superduperspeed USB, but you can be damn sure at the very least the plugs won't fit.
Throw a DVD in there, maybe three or four copies individually wrapped. With any luck at all we'll still be using optical media to some extent and it'll be backwards compatible thanks to everyone's dvd collections.
You could use one of the various mp3/divx players that have their own display and use an hard drive. They usually can play back picture slide-shows as well, and a magnetic media inside a steel box should be pretty safe. Several also have a video out to connect them to a television. You could remove the battery for safety (I doubt that the current batteries would survive the storage, and might deteriorate badly) and include a wall plug adapter with instructions for connecting to available power sources. There's even regulated adapters that will work both from AC and 12V DC, so the power supply should be pretty future proof.
The interface could be problematic, but somebody will have the means to read the data off of the EPROM into our quantum-tunneling diamond-substrate 100GHz personal computer interface devices. Or that dusty Pentium 2GHz non-DRM computer in the basement.
Perhaps just making some prints is the easiest.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
monitor, hard disk, computer.
Ensure that whatever device you send goes complete with power adapter and user manual. In at least two languages.
I think people will remember how to speak English in 25 years.
How much data? I'd suggest printing a mask onto a good quality stainless steel and etching a image a digital camera can capture and a computer can decode onto it. The same method used for PC board making will do. There are several very good techniques to convert the data to something similar to a bar code.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
The EeePC 701, at least, powers up fine without a battery.
I really worry more about the method of closure more than anything. Anybody ever seen the smoke coming off of a welding electrode? Can't be good for any media. First if you decide on any media such as DVD or CD then definitely use vacuum seal bags with some kind of internal frame/box to keep the vacuum on the bag from warping the media (if it needs to spin when read)
Otherwise make sure the welder understands that ~no~ gas from the welding process can enter the protected enclosure. Filling the enclosure with nitrogen (good) or helium (best) would be advisable.
Welded??? How the heck are the future pic viewers supposed to open the vessel??? What if they whip out the old cutting torch and slice it right through the middle with nice big lumps of slag dropping on your oh so carefully preserved media??
Think of a better way of enclosing such as a vacuum sealed box inside a sealed 30 gallon drum inside a sealed 55 gallon drum sealed in concrete.
Learn all you can from the (arguably) failure of the BBC Domesday Project and build from there.
My advice for a time capsule is:
It's tough but it just might be doable. Again, the keywords are redundancy and simplicity. If the data is important, make two identical time capsules and store them in geographically different areas (different tectonic plates are safest but this is probably overkill :) ). It's important that the copies of the time capsule be identical so data lost from one can be restored from the other.
-- Sig down
I still had pictures and other junk in the closet of my old bedroom from 25 years ago. I WISH it would have degraded so I didn't have to go through the emotional strain of finally throwing it all out when my parents sold the house. It would have saved me the travel expenses, too.
But if you don't have a handy closet, then you can make prints on archival-quality paper with archival-quality inks and seal it all in a case filled with inert gas. Archivists have whole catalogs of products which are designed specifically for this kind of project, their clients include libraries and such. Most cities have an archive department; they'd probably be willing to have you visit for a Q&A. (In fact, thinking back to an old school trip I once went on, it struck me that the head archivist was overjoyed to have anybody come by expressing an interest in his work.)
While hard copies are probably the most reliable way to go, the question of long-term digital storage is certainly an interesting one. I know I used to be able to get gold-substrate non-recordable CDs made, and while others have said the components will probably be fused and useless in a couple of decades of zero-use, I'd include not just a CD player, but a whole computer system. You never know. Voyager lasted well-beyond its projected service life, though I suspect NASA was using the highest quality of parts available at the time. Maybe you could find some old mechanical floppy disk players; the kind with big clunky parts. I suspect that big and clunky will have a longer shelf-life than cheap, tiny and designed to break down after a three year product cycle.
Maybe you could print out a roll of paper tape in bar-code format and include a bar-code reader with schematics so the future people can build one themselves if they felt so motivated. Heck, punch cards and an old reader might stand the test of time. Paper seems to do well. I wonder if they still make papyrus products.
Oooh. You could store data on DNA strings and then leave it in the form of sea-monkey eggs! (Kinda makes you wonder if we're not all walking around with somebody's snap shots in our genes right now.)
You have a massive budget for this, no doubt, so just for fun, duplicate the set-up a few times and bury each for a different duration; 25 years, 50 years, 100, etc.
Otherwise, I'd just ask one of your students to leave it in his or her closet and bring the package to the school reunion. (Assuming you're a teacher. Who else gets to do this kind of cool project?)
Anyway, it sounds like fun! Enjoy!
-FL
Put it on an Atari 2600 Cart. I guarantee we can read those in 25 years, I can still read the one's I have now. If you make a rom a) I want a copy and b) it will last 1000 years.
Oh, the pictures might have to be kinda small tho, max 64k per cart.
How about something along the lines of this?
On a more serious note CDs have been around for 23 years and still going strong so there's no reason to think it'll be difficult to get a CD-ROM drive in another 25. Anyway the trend so far (CD -> DVD -> Bluray) has been for backward compatible media. Whether the discs'll last that long is another thing, probably not.
How long does flash memory last un-accessed? if it'll last long enough I'd put several different SD cards and a usb sd card reader in a sealed box (Tupperware or something), then encase that box in big block of wax. (I remember blue peter's time capsules were full of water, I reckon a thick layer of wax should be completely watertight?)
Use a writeable archival CD and/or DVD MAM-A Archival disks and/or add a couple different flash devices (USB, CF, SD, etc) formatted with different file systems. As well as the full datasheet for the flash IC(s) contained inside the devices. If the form factors are non-existant, someone could still read the flash device with some kind of future flash reading apparatus. Or at least carve the full part numbers for the memory sticks and ICs into stone so that the exhumer can look up the datasheet using his/her hive-mind-galaxy-web implants.
As long as you use a common media format that can withstand the temperature and humidity in a hermetically sealed container, you should be okay. Even 25 years from now, someone will have access to a working 8" floppy drive.
If you were using a less-than-common media or were talking a century, then you'd have real concern.
Just to be safe, I'd put it on two different kinds of media as well as paper or a long-lasting film format.
You might also try "printing" the pictures in hex or in a bitmap as others have suggestion. Printing to black-and-white microfilm as hex characters or even a "2 dimensional bar-code" format should give you very good density. Just be sure to document the data format in human-readable form, and store multiple copies in case of media failure.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"Advantages:
* Longevity. Although many magnetic tapes have deteriorated over time to the point that the data on them has been irretrievably lost, punched tape can be read many decades later, probably lasting many centuries.
* Human accessibility. The hole patterns can be decoded visually if necessary, and torn tape can be repaired (using special all-hole pattern tape splices). Editing text on a punched tape was achieved by literally cutting and pasting the tape with scissors, glue, or by taping over a section to cover all holes and making new holes using a manual hole punch."
Paper has a 100+ years life expectancy. Modern laser prints are not that much worse, at most pages will stick together to some degree, so make sure it is one-sided printing.
As to electronic solutions, data recovery companies should still be able to read CDs in 25 years. But practially no burned CD will survive that long. CVD is not better. As to a thumb-drive, the current data retention times are 10 years, so that is out. HDDs are also out. While they might survive that long, the current visdom is that you should power them up once a year. 3.5" MOD disks are the only viable electronic option, I think. They are used in a lot of medical imaging equipment and in several countries digital x-rays need to be stored for 20 years. MODs can give you that, with a current media life expectanty of >50 years. I would expect that professional data recovery for MODs will be available in 25 years as well.
As to filesystem, go FAT. It is simple and will till be supported, e.g. by Linux.
Quote franklty, the paper solution is best.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Relax a bit on the caps. He can replace them in 25 years (capacitors will still be around by then), no need to do it now. Moreover, some can also be "revitalised" by letting the power come up slowly. A few months ago I resurrected a valve amp that didn't see power for at least 30 years. Runs smoothly now without replacing anything.
Ok, I'll bite: what has been around since specifically 1844? Photography and paper are older.
everything needs to be sealed well, however. double or triple on some water-tight somethingsomething to be safe,
Or maybe submerging it into mineral oil. Does anyone know if electronics can withstand 25 years submerged into oil ?
Everything will also need to be redundant :
- burned DVD-R/CD-R media may rot. Harddrive may refuse to spin because of chemical aging of the mechanical part, flash memory could fail, etc...
- as much spares as possible. 25 years from now, spare parts will probably be hard to find.
- a couple of SATA and USB drives/readers. Whatever the are the connection 25 years in the future, USB is currently so popular that in the future, we're bound to see adapters, just the we we currently see Serial-2-USB adapter even if serial connector have been phased out for quite some time.
---
Come to think of it, printouts of data compressed and printed out as 2D barcode may be the most durable technology.
- extensive experience shows that, under proper conditions, paper can be made survive for even longer than 25 years.
- reading and decoding a 2D barcode doesn't require any technology specific to the current generation of hardware.
- as long as the data is stored in a redundant manner and that it use open and well documented standard with source code available. It would still be accessible by computer 25 years later, even if it requires some programming and/or re-implementation of a long lost standard.
(as a bonus, include documentation of formats printed in clear on paper too)
- choose simpler standards. chance are none of the current open source library processing it will be available in 25 years. the kids will probably have to re-code a reader / decompressor using whatever will be the popular high-level language du jour ( Ruberlython#++ or something similar ). may make a fun science project for them.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Dont't you read Slashdot? http://mobile.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/27/1334214
\m/
In order to assure readability in the future, you need to provide not only the data in a ( format that will survive 25 years) robust format, but also the means in which to access the data. i.e., if you save the data on a medium like a flash drive (dont know if it will last 25 years, we'll assume it will) but the computer or something that will read the data, and a power supply, and written instructions on how to access the data. That is my grandiose plan for future readability.
I was going to suggest Paperbak too.
You can store up to 3 megabytes per page
To be clear, Paperbak encodes 500,000 bytes per page. The 3 megabytes figure was for c code (which is easily compressed) - most image formats are already compressed so you won't get 3 megs worth on a page.
You probably also want to include a human readable description the encoding/decoding algorithm and the source code.
I have family photographs that are over 150 years old that are quite legible without being stored in a hermetically sealed container. They're glass plate Daguerreotypes, but early paper photos almost as old still look fine, too.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
The simple answer is you dont use a singular strategy when talking about digital data. I would put all of the data on a regular spinning Hard Drive, a flash drive, cdr/dvdr, and I would print them out and put them all in the box. I also would upload a copy, even at reduced resolution to Amazon S3. Pictures are irreplaceable, plan your costs accordingly.
Good-bye
Assuming that the problem is reading the images in the future as opposed to the media itself, why not just drop in a complete but simple digital camera (no moving parts), an AC adaptor, and leave the pictures on a big SD card?
Will the media survive 25 years? Likely.
Will they have a machine that can read the media? Yes.
Will they be able to power the machine? Surely AC power will still be around.
And if that doesn't work turn them all into Viewmaster slides.... those things never die.
Three Squirrels
Only a handful of working systems in US including mine.
That's awesome! I have an old wang I would really like to get something from. Do you think I could take my wang out and put it in your system?
Silver halide microfilm has a life expectancy of 500 years and only requires a magnifying glass to be used. Take your photos to a pro, spend a little money, and you'll have permanent archival backups of your media.
And just write the 1's and 0's on it... :)
another poster joked to print the data in hex. he might in fact have a point.
Data compressed using an open and well documented standard, yet simple enough so that even if it isn't used anymore in 25years, the kids could still try to re-implement it with the high-level language du jour.
Then using a good redundant system, print the on paper as 2D barcodes. Laminate the paper sheets.
Print a couple of plain text pages explaining the algorithms used. And maybe some sample source code written in a couple of popular modern language hoping that they will still be around and not have mutated too much in 25 years (or at least the our current programming paradigm will still be intelligible by programmers 25 years later so they could re-implement the reader decoder)
The result is as durable as traditional paper-based time-capsule content, but has the advantage of the better density that compression + 2D barcode add. And isn't dependent on any current hardware, but only on re-implementing the same algorithm 25 years later and using whatever technology is then popular to digitize the pages.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
The old black and white Silver halide prints last for a very long time. I've got a 11X14 family print of my GG-grandmother and her children that is exquisite in it's clarity and quality. It was taken in 1893. Color prints from the 1950s haven't fared nearly so well. The dyes fade.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
> and I know for a fact that CDRs deteriorate after about 10 years.
Some archival media is rated for 100 years. But forget that, just make a gold master and send it out to be commercially duplicated. It isn't THAT exensive, so have a small run of 100 copies made. Sell 90 of them in a fundraiser to recoup the expense of duplication and stick the other ten into a small stainless steel airtight container with an inert gas. Wrap that in some quality insulation to protect it againt the heat when the main capsule gets welded shut. I have heard lots of 25 year old audio compact discs and they sound just fine. But if there is enough bit rot to make recovering data dodgy, well you have nine more still shrinkwrapped copies to try reading any bad blocks from.
The only remaining question is whether equipment to read a Compact Disc will still be available in twenty five years. And the answer is almost certainly. It probably won't be nearly as popular as it is today but the LP is ten years in the grave and you can still buy a new turntable at Sears.
A pressed DVD might be even better because the recorded media is safely between two layers of substrate instead of only protected by the screenprinted label on the top. On the other hand we have enough history with the CD to know beyond any doubt that they survive in readable condition for the required time, even under typical consumer storage conditions.
Democrat delenda est
Awww man!!! I don't want to look at some guy's Wang!!!!
NASA has already tackled the problem of long-term access of unsupported storage
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
and documentation for the file formats. Put this on human readable media, not electronic.
When they open it up, interfacing to the devices will be a straightforward exercise.
If, somehow it goes longer, well you've covered that contingency.
Blogging because I can...
Encrypt a bunch of data, bury the key - printed on a sheet of paper, plastic, or carved in a stone tablet - and then distribute the encrypted data as far and wide as possible.
I currently have data on my harddrive that's over 15 years old. It should be relatively easy to keep the data intact on your own harddrives at least, as you upgrade disks. The only thing you should do is 1) destroy the encryption key to prevent yourself from "peeking" at it, and 2) have a checksum of the encrypted data, so you can verify over time which copies of the encrypted data are still intact.
Why not just put the images on a CD, DVD, flash drive, hard drive, SD card and any other small cheap storage device you can think of? It wouldn't cost very much and surely one of these devices would survive 25 years and still be readable and I can't imagine USB going away in 25 years. Hell I bet we'll still have PS/2, serial and parallel ports in 25 years. Plus it would be a nice experiment to see which ones do hold up.
Put the pictures on an iPod Touch. Put the iPod Touch and a wall charger in the time capsule. The world will not be performing a 100% wholesale change of wall outlet formats or electrical current standards in the next quarter century.
think of it:
1) Since it's vacuum, pressure will most probably keep it shut for the coming years.
2) Since it's a vacuum, the deteriation rate of the storage material is a lot lower, since you minimized the environmental impact on the storage material.
Add to this the fact that you'd probably want worm memory which has no power needs and doesn't store by means of magnetism (to decrease the possible loss of data even further), you'd probably end up with either CDs or... paper (in one form or the other). I'd go for paper, but make sure it's high quality paper which is made to last and plot your data on it in a compressed format. A gold disk might also be useful, but those things are imho only useful when you're dealing with temperature fluctuations.
Why does it have to be stored digitally?
To be honest, you would probably avoid all the issues by going with printed images.
Unless, there is some specific reason for them to be stored digitally, I think it is probably the LEAST viable way to store images for a time period of 25 years. Print off high quality images, then put them in a nitrogen filled container. The only concern at that point is making a container that will not leak off all the nitrogen in that timeframe, or otherwise become contaminated.
I remember breaking up a concrete pad in a friends back yard with jackhammers, only to find that the people who poured the slab had cut corners by filling it with balls of scrunched up newspaper. The newspaper was still perfectly legible after 39 years(The date of the newspapers confirmed this, unless they used old newspapers) and newsprint is notoriously high acid content.
I'd like to revisit this thread in 25 years and see what came of this enterprise. ;-)
I don't see why someone couldn't simply bury a notebook with it, then everything is compatible, etc.
Unrelated, but Carter was an honest person
I always quickpar files in CD's / DVD's, it takes extra time but re-finding and redownloading data is even more time consuming.
Quickpar
http://www.quickpar.org.uk/
Quicksvf
http://www.quicksfv.org/index.html
25 years is not very long. CDs will still be around. CD players will still be around. Had you said 250 then I'd worry. But in 25 only 25 year the same guy who burries the capsule may be the same guy who digs it up and then goes and finds his same old computer to play the disc.
The questions are if the CDs will last that long. They will if they are "pressed". they might i they are archive quality recordable CDs. Just make multiple copies of the same exact CD using the same ISO file and place the CDs in jewel boxes and the boxes in plastic zip lock bags
Filling the can up with inert gas is a great idea. It is cheap at welding suppy places.
250 years would be much harder, computers will have changed a lot by then.
I'm pretty sure that no matter what file format the files are stored in, somewhere on the successor to the internet 25 years from now there will be a converter that will read them. The problem is obviously the media (physical format). Hard copies of the photos on high quality paper will work, but you won't get exact digital copies if that's what you need.
There are other options. One very common 2D barcode format is PDF417. A quick google search indicates you can print 1144 characters (I interpret that as bytes) per square inch. If you figure there's up to 84 square inches of printable area on a standard letter sized piece of paper, and you use JPEG compression, then you could put about one 4x6" picture's worth of data on each piece of paper (my math says about 95k per page). Print it out on really good acid free paper. PDF417 uses error detection and correction technology, so even if there's a bit of damage, it should come out intact.
Label the top of each page as PDF417 format. Leave it as an exercise to the next generation to scan them in and decode them.
Plus you could put printed hard copies of the photos in there too as a backup.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
See also the link to the Norsam Company Note that metal CD's and DVD's are also available.
The only concern is the cost of this 25 year archive
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
We will have better technology and understanding in 25 years. As long as there is motivation to access the data, someone will. It's not that I don't have access to the technology to read a punchcard, I just don't have the inclination to dig up the specs and understand them.
Include the specs to the device you choose.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
Store in these 3 formats:
1. Microfilm etched on silicone (B/W only) with binary copy etches as well That should have geological stability. >1My (million years) Recovery: microscope
2. Add a CD glass master and/or a commercial copy. This is much more stable than burnt dye CD >0.1My Recovery: CD player
3. Print on acid free paper with archive quality ink. >0.0001My Recovery: Human eye
Option 1 is not as expensive as it sound. You can probably get material for free or for a few $$. Etching you can do yourself in a photo lab, or if you want finer detail, use a commercial stepper a few generations old (i.e. 200nm feature size)
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Scissors do ;)
"Three eyes are better than one" -- Lieutenant Columbo
In 1884, George Eastman developed the technology of film to replace photographic plates, leading to the technology used by film cameras today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photography#History_of_photography
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Dont rely on optical, but you could stuff one in with it.
I would go with something which is at least expected to retain the data that long as a first step. Perhaps a hard disk of some kind.
Then choose your interface, you might choose one with multiple interface types, or just go USB, Of course most machines will not have USB in 25 years ( but they might ), but you should still be able to adapt it up using common off the shelf adapters at that point. The trick is to choose something common right now, so common that it will still be a bit of a problem in 25 years. I would think USB is your closest fit. I would stake the project on that assumption if it were me.
Dont store it with a battery, good chance it will do bad things to you, and the battery will be useless in 25 years anyhow ( so iPods are out ).
Wrap it up in Saran Wrap with a packet of silica gel, and then drop that in some luke warm wax to put a nice thick seal on it.
In 25 years just break the wax and it will still be dry and clean. Then your off to 7-11 to hit the BestBuy vending machine to get your USB to PlasmaWire(tm) adapter.
Anyhow, thats how I would do it.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
and for my original post, I meant the to use 1884 date, not 1844
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Of course, I'm assuming we'll still have electrical outlets in 25 years.
Just put the stuff on a shelf in a library.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Go to a museum that archives photographs and ask them what to do. The answer may not be digital, but it will survive the 25 years you want it to survive.
Let's think out of the box. Besides burying color prints which will fade slightly over time there's another solution. Make three color separation of each image. Each separation is made onto a thin gold plate. Hey, permanence isn't cheap. And all you can thank me thousands of years from now to have pictures from today.
Post it to Slashdot, and put the link on acid-free paper.
Use ion deposition technology. The characters are inscribed and can be read/OCR'ed with any microscope. I believe you can store 20,000 pages on a 5" nickel disk. The burner is about $250,000. There are firms offering the service.
Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
25 years isn't such a problem but say you wanted to store the box for 250 years, then you really might have some issues...
The thing that scares me about digital storage these days is that redundancy is much lower as we cram more and more into tinier and tinier spaces. We offset the increased probability of errors with coding but IMHO that is a non-trivial operation from an archaeological perspective.
If you have only a small amount of data to store, is it possible to somehow print it in small, but recoverable dot patterns on long-life paper with long-life inks? I can't see scanner/camera technology disappearing anytime soon...
As long as there's still a source of light around in 25 years, someone will be able to view it.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Ostensibly, you would be burying things that you would want to preserve, like objects. If you're burying electronic media, you're missing the point that electronic media can be preserved much more easily by copying it to new media.
What will survive best in your dirt grave? Probably tape, followed by flash media, floppy diskettes, and finally hard drives. But the entire point is that you don't bury that stuff; you archive it by making backups (above ground).
Time capsules are a novelty. Put something in it worthy of being in a capsule, like a popular culture object (ie. toy or ipod or something).
Why not get a 4gb memory stick and a $100 digital frame, and put the data and a standalone player together? Many digital frames also have USB technology, and could transfer the files to a USB if that technology is easier to find in 25 years. Some of these have battery backup, which you could also include in case electrical systems change.
People have been putting information of technology that they knew would be outdated in 25 years in time capsules for a long time. What would you do if you opened one up and it had a old vinyl record in it? A cassette tape? Probably find a record or cassette player. I think the easiest thing you could do to help them out is make sure that you have a standalone player included.
Just make sure the media you put in there won't lose its data integrity within your time frame.
Regardless of how he handles the photos, he should include a cassette labeled "An message from us in 2008 to you in 2033" with a recording of "Hello m'baby" on it - I'm sure in 25 years, there'll be someone around who'll get the joke.
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
Try googling "The Thompson Twins Adventure Game". While it may be about as convenient as scooping your eyes out, a record can store information this size, and as long as you don't bend it, snap it, or scratch it to oblivion, it will be readable until the end of days.
I think that the best solution would be to store in "stages," each containing information to bootstrap to the next one. The simplest solution is etching smaller and smaller text onto an ultra-durable oxide ceramic that would survive the ages. Start with 1mm character height for a few pages, then shrink the characters by a factor of 10. For the first 3 stages, you could include a simple lab microscope. Beyond that you'd need either an electron microscope or a reader described by the preceeding text.
The first sets of plates would hold a few pages, the second would hold short books, and the third would hold whole encyclopedias. The ones smaller than the microscope could read would hold compressed (and multiply redundant) digital data; The fifth-generation plates would hold over a terabyte each if they were 10x10cm.
It would probably be a good idea to make the optical-read parts into cylinders; The outer layers, holding low-density information, would protect the more fragile inner layers. You could even put mounts for them on the microscope, so it would be as simple as attaching a cylinder and cranking a handle to scroll text past.
Needless to say, this is probably something more suited for the Long Now Foundation than a 25 year time capsule.
Insightful? Printed photo is a raster dump, the original file is an almost vectorized object.
25 years? audio tape
50 years? audio tape.
1844? Aha! audi redorded as vibrations in a platter or tube and reproduced with a needle.
Audio cassettes and reel to reel tape stored right have survived very well for over 30 years. Some have survived in great shape over 50 years.
But Records, there are some my family owns that are near 100 years old. and I am sure they will still play. Ohh and the cool part, I can make a player in 20 minutes with easy to find parts I can make or buy.
That right there is the key. Store it on a format that is easy to create the reader.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Even while the longevity of data on quality CD/DVD media will probably survive 25 years in a controlled environment, the welding part may just burn them useless.
Flash disks and memory cards are probably not a good idea as well. PDA's left untouched after a few years sometimes need reinstallation.
Printing in binary on microfilm is probably one way to go. Printing binary on paper would probably take up too much space.
You might want to consider the Nintendo cartridges. They've been around for more than 25 years, never needed any special handling and storage. Those things are tough, you can even run over them with your car, if you take away the external casing and stick the board on your NES, it's still going to be good to go. You won't probably even need to put it inside the capsule, just stick it in a plastic bag and bury it beside your capsule.
no sig = no personality(?)
Etch plates of stainless steel with binary data. The first plate contains explanations (in several languages) of the binary format.
It is then simplicity itself to scan the plates and so create images (via code) from the binary data thereon.
Leave the hard work to the people who open the thing - not to the people creating it!
We should never underestimate how smart the people in the future will be, nor what resources they will have to hand, that we can't even imagine today.
Your only responsibility is to ensure data integrity; reading, or deciphering it is not your role.
Don't forget, people uncovering old technology absolutely LOVE coming up with ways to get the data out. Our future selves will be no different.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
If I were to shoot for 250 years instead of 25, I would probably store whatever digital data as a tone modulated signal written onto a durable gramophone record (metallic, perhaps). It is technologically primitive enough that you'll be able to get it back into digital format with basic tools of the day (assuming no catastrophic collapse of civilization as we know it)
Burn a digital representation onto vinyl. I have some of my dads old 78's from 60 yrs ago that still play. Yes, I still have a table that will play them. And if I didn't, converting from 78 to 45 to 33.3 would be easy in software.
Some macroscale physical representation of the data would be far more resistant to any bitrot than mag media or CD/DVD.
A player to reproduce that into whatever bits are standard would be easy to build if necessary.
And I have (as do most if they looked) 15 yr old 3.5 floppies that still read perfectly. Not saying that is a solution, but low density bits degrade far slower.
Pick a SCSI model hard drive. These things have been around since 1986, which is pretty close to the 25 years time-frame you are trying for. It also should be noted that we can still connect a SCSI-1 device into a modern day SCSI bus, so if someone had dropped a SCSI drive in 1986 into a time capsule that was to be opened up in 2011, there is a VERY good chance that we would be able to read it. This technology isn't going to go away either in the next 25 years. So it would be the method of choice if you are going to use a hard drive.
We were all warned a long time ago that MS products sucked, remember the Magic 8 Ball said, "Outlook not so good"
Print out the Hex code of your images on paper and include a printed copy of the JPEG filespec outline :)
Really, will CD's/DVD's not work? I can't image they would be unreadable... to my knowledge they primarily suffer from light degradation which wouldn't be an issue here. We can still read 8-tracks from the 70's and they were a short lived standard. The CD is hardly going to become some mystical item in another 20 years considering how long they have been (and continue to be) a standard.
Play me online? Well you know that I'll beat you. If I ever meet you I'll "/sbin/shutdown -h now" you. -Weird Al, kinda.
Stones with engraved symbols from Paleolithic are still readable after all these years.
Write the zeroes and ones into stones?
You could go a step further than EEPROMs which are by definition erasable. Originally PROMs were designed for use in Atlas ICBM's, and the data is written in a truly permanent way by actually burning out fuses on the chip, unlike even the OTP EPROMs which are just normal EPROMs missing the erasure window. Remember all those old game cartridges? The cartridges for the Atari 2600 used PROMs and (aside from contact corrosion and dirt) are still operational today, 30 years later.
There are plenty of books out there older than 25 years old... so print out the (binary, hex dump, 1's and 0's) onto paper and store them somewhere where they will survive.
Hell, even that's too tech... engrave the above into stone and make the Long Now Foundation proud.
p.s. Don't mod this funny. I'm not joking. There is no guarantee that any media that plugs into a computer will be easily accessible in 25 years time, but you can damn well guarantee that they will still have scanners, and that their OCR software will have improved since then.
Burn the image onto a PROM. Leave paper instructions on how it was burned.
http://www.linuxdocs.org/HOWTOs/Diskless-HOWTO-7.html
Drawings on cave walls have survived for more than 10,000 years. Learn from that lesson. Print the data and store in an air-tight box. Then you won't have to worry about technology compatibility.
Yes, yes it would. You see photographers actually care about their prints lasting (or at least they have since Wilhelm started doing permanence testing on color materials and discovered they all sucked at the time). A pigment inkjet print on acid-free paper or a good B&W silver halide print will probably outlast most digital media you can easily come up with. And the print is it's own reader. That said in 2012 we will still be able to find hardware to read 3.5in floppies from 1987 so it's perfectly reasonable to believe there will still be drives that can read archival gold CD-R and DVD+-R's in 25 years.
It most likely was said, but maybe if you have an old laptop, throw that in there with the cd/dvd/flash drive. Maybe even leave some clear instructions on how to turn on the laptop and use the media left in the capsule.
/me wonders witch statute of limitations applies to these photos.
::i visited slashdot and all i got was this lousy sig::
Why not open it up every 10yrs and copy the media to 'new' media? How hard could that be?
Have you thought about holographic storage? I think the holographic worm disks are supposed to last 50+ years. Check out InPhase Technologies.
I haven't read through all of the myriad replies, but the repeated themes of the responses illustrates that asking a design question on Slashdot will yield predominantly technohead solutions. The original query is rather unspecific about the problem it is wanting to solve. Why is it necessary to _bury_ the data, and why is it necessary that the data be in _digital_ form. Presumably the real requirement is that the data be recoverable after 25 years. (Aside: 25 years is a rather short time for data preservation, and extremely short for a traditional time capsule. I've been in computing nearly twice that long. But I've noticed from anecdotal new reports of opened time capsules over the years that the capsule has usually failed mechanically over the years, and that stored items are compromised by moisture leakage.) Anyway, thinking back 45 years, I can't think of any medium from back then that would be conveniently readable today (except scanning carefully-preserved paper). Even thinking back the specified 25 years, almost any medium would not be readable, although IDE drives existed around then and a hard floppy disk would just barely qualify. But why not think outside the hardware box? How much are you willing to spend? Although it is questionable whether media can be preserved 25 years, there is no problem with media that is only 5 years old. I can think of no current, main-line media format from 5 years ago that could not be read today. So why not create a trust that will rent several redundant geographically-distributed bank safe deposit boxes, and store multiple copies of your favorite medium, or several favorite media, in each. The trustee (which could be a bank or other financial institution -- it doesn't matter if they go out of business, because courts treat trust responsibilities very seriously) would be required every five years to engage a consultant to decide whether and how the media should be recoded and restored in light of current technology. This could be established with a reasonable endowment that could return an inflation-adjusted $10K per five years, to cover both the trust and consulting fees. If the banks, government, and Western civilization all fail, then perhaps you won't be concerned about your images. But otherwise preserving them for 25 years is easy, if you can pay the price. The price falls greatly if many clients take a share. Perhaps this will be a startup suggestion for someone.
25 years:
For high capacity? SCSI (not quite 25 years yet, but i dont predict it dying any time soon)
So SATA is probably your best bet.
In AZTEC code, with 25% redundancy for error correction, you can fit 3000 bytes per large bar code, and about 12 bar codes on a page, so that's 36000 bytes per acid-free page. If the jpeg is low enough resolution and quality, you can fit one per page. If not, you may need a bunch of pages per photo. Then just include a printout of the AZTEC spec and the source code for an AZTEC recognizer (say, one that goes from a tiff scan to the binary data on the page; for good measure, include printouts of the tiff and jpeg specs) in ANSI C or FORTRAN-77 or something like that (you can include the language spec, but that's going overboard; you can count on C being still available in 30 years, I think) and printed in a clear, serifed, easily-scannable font, also on acid free paper. For good measure, throw in ten copies of the CD, with a lot of error correcting data if you like, and two CD drives. :-)
Whatever you do, document it well (on acid-free PAPER!), and Keep It Simple (Stupid).
If you document the way to extract pictures from a 1 pin serial port device, some clever programmer is able to write a program to extract the pictures. Don't use advanced compression, although I'm fairly sure JPEG will still be around, but simple byte-arranged (RGB-RGB) pixels can always be retrieved, if documented properly.
I think in that way someone should be able to retrieve pictures in a 100 years time.
On the other hand, PCs and Macs have been around for 25+ years, and some of their old filesystems are still supported. FAT16 *seems* to be a fairly open standard, even though it officially is not.
just my 2 cents...
... except, of course, for a rock hard copy
Fill the container with an inert gas.
Wow, lots of dumb comments from supposedly smart people. The best, easiest, and cheapest solution is to use microfiche/film. Anyone else know of any other 200+ year old formats that are still easily readable today, and will continue to be so for as long as we know how to use a bit of water and some light to magnify?
I once read that some picture archives are backing up the most important digital images in this way:
- split the image into three monochrome channels (RGB)
- print each channel to a B&W silver negative
- store the obtained three negatives - silver film if kept properly can last longer than 100 years
- to restore the image, scan the three negatives and re-mix in a photo editor
The assumption is that the technology to scan a film negative will still be there.
Arcady Genkin
Assign/hire someone to keep it in live and keep updating/refreshing to the latest common medium.
So in case the content of the capsule cannot be retrieved (because obsoleted medium / interface or the media itself is destroyed), someone could stand up and says "Here is an exact backup copy we maintained over the years-"
1. Create a few GMail accounts
2. Upload the stuff there
3. Keep the login usernames and passwords in the time capsule
4. ???
5. Profit!!!
w00t
Just welding shut in a steel case is not enough. You have to keep it in a regulated atmosphere. A straightforward way to do this is to make sure the media is enclosed in a pressurized nitrogen/inert gas container. The pressure doesn't have to be too high, just somewhat above the atmospheric pressure.
You can also set up a sensor alarm that will alert you when the pressure starts nearing atmospheric pressure. All you have to do is keep replacing the batteries on alarm.
Steel container might protect from physical damage, but atmospheric variables will still affect your media. Be mindful of that.
It seems to me that putting it on Amazon's S3 system might be the best route. They don't seem likely to be going out of business, and will be constantly updating their technology, migrating the data to new drives etc. over time.
Vinyl! I have recordings AND a playback device that are over 25 years old and functioning very well. If you have room for records and a turntable, I'd say this is hard to beat.
Might be a bit overkill for just 25 years, but microfilms are what they used before the "digital era" to hold reliably and densely tons of info. Only takes an optical magnification instrument to read. With that said, I'd go for a small set of instructions at the beginning of the microfilm, and then the rest would be data printed as hexadecimal characters, or maybe a smarter more efficient scheme if you can think of one, like storing data as colour pixels (the important part being how many colours per pixels and how much resolution you can afford without making it too susceptible to error), also using a slight error correction scheme. That's what they used in the late 1930s when they wanted to store data to be read 6000 years later.
Oh and I guess you can use such services for that.
You just got troll'd!
First of all, dude. Like, dude. It's only 25 years; I have two "big" floppy drives sitting in my closet that were probably made in the 80's (maybe earlier) that are still in working condition. There are thousands of these things scattered across the country, and most of you probably know someone who has one, or at least there is a functioning device in your city (you might want to check a local library, public school, or government office).
Also, as long as it took for the big daddy floppies to die out, serial data ports never have. For how many decades did computers have db25 and db9 connectors? My last PC still has a db9, and with a simple adapter and the right driver I could connect any serial device I own to a USB port. If you stick a thumb drive in the time capsule, computers are still going to have USB in 25 years! I challenge anyone from the future to dig up this post and publicize it. If the USB port changes or they give a new funny name/cute abbreviation to the standard serial bus, just get an adapter and plug it in.
Also, with the legacy of optical media, I'd say you'd have nothing to fear from a CD or, better yet, a DVD. Think about it--how long ago were CD's invented? Why do DVD's and Blu-Rays come in the exact same shape and size as the CD did? You can stick them all in the same drive, and Blu-Ray drives can read DVD's, and DVD drives can read CD's, and so on. Expect some backwards compatibility, or do you think all these billions of DVD's we consumers bought are going to just disappear in 25 years? I don't think so. As if I'm going to wake up 25 years from now and not be able to play my copy of The Princess Bride. Inconceivable!
Hard to say from the OP what the right balance of effort/cost/risk is here. If it's a bunch of folks at a summer camp or family reunion (where everyone's probably going to have their own copies of the archive anyway), then the risk of losing data is low, even if the capsule archive is corrupted. The shotgun approach of multiple cheap formats, as suggested by others, would probably suffice.
On the other hand, long-term, thermodynamically stable storage requires bulk physics -- engraved/punched metal/paper/plastic, acid-free printing, inert gas environments, etc. Expensive and labor-intensive to create and (probably) also to recover. As a recent article described, it's not for the faint of heart or wallet.
Just put the pictures on the web somewhere and put a URL in the box. I'm sure we'll still have the Internet in 25 years.
Shockwave Flash movies are the greatest thing to happen to non-sequitur humor since Japan.
screw the hardware, what file format will be around in 25 years?
I think it'd be pretty cool if I had a solar powered system on my tomb where people could watch videos and hear my take on my life and times. Sure it'd take some money to upkeep, but I see the biggest problem in data decay. In 100+ years, will people be able to still watch?
God spoke to me.
It looks like nobody but you realized it. The fact is that it is much easier to maintain a reliable copy of digital data when it is live (ie. copied around from time to time), than to maintain it on the same media for 25 years.
If it were me I would do it this way: rent/buy 3 servers (colo or hosted) on 3 different continents to maintain 3 copies of this data. Checksum it. On each server, verify the checksum periodically. When a corruption is detected, fetch a good copy from one of the 2 other servers. (This is technically what Google is doing in its datacenters with GFS.) Sure this solution requires (a little bite of) maintainance overtime. Once in a while a datacenter will relocate and you may have to rebuild a server, a hosting company might go bankrupt, etc. But IMO it is by far the most reliable way to store data with virtually zero chance of losing it.
Load them onto a password protected internet account and bury the password in your capsule.
Devise an encoding that can accurately be read using current scanners. Write a program to take the bitmap and translate it into a digital stream. Keep the program around outside of the time capsule for 25 years and move along with each computer upgrade. Then all you need to do in 2033 is find a scanner with an automatic document feeder and start scanning.
Could a CD-ROM, DVD, or IDE, SATA, USB, FireWire, Ethernet+TCP/IP, or Ethernet+IPv6, disk survive for 25 years and be usable in 2033? Sure. Is any of these guaranteed to work? Nope. Paper is.
Aluminum electrolytic capacitors are still often seen on motherboards and cards, but I haven't seen one on a hard drive for well over a decade, and I seriously doubt that they've ever been used in a memory stick. I have some old hard drives from the early 1990's sitting right here. Not a single one has any aluminum electrolytic caps. They all use solid tantalum caps instead, which age much better.
Memory sticks don't need much capacitance, and are usually in thin packages (sometimes as thin as SD cards). It's unlikely that any of them would contain any tantalum caps, much less the much taller aluminum electrolytic caps. More likely just a few small value ceramics, or possibly even just some distributed capacitance layers built-in to the IC substrate, with no discrete capacitors at all.
The best way is storing a complete communication system, like a PC with USB, wireless bluetooth,... and also DVD reader, ... beside those storage mediums what ever they are,
This way there is a good chance you can find a way to read it even 50 year later,
Be like shadow in the light or darkness.KMZ
As if storing something for 25 years is actually a challenge. I have 5.25" floppy disks from when I was a young child. Not quite 25 years, but getting close and still fine. 3.5" floppies always sucked, the bits fall off if you look at them wrong. Most electronics have NO PROBLEM lasting 25 years. I have a record player and receiver from probably early 70s that work fine. LPs from the early 1900s that still play, though a little scratchy. If seriously in doubt, burn the files into a ROM chip, interface it with USB, and be done with it. I know my old NES games still play fine, and they're burned into a ROM... An interface as prevalent as USB will be around in 25 years, assuming we're still around. Really... if I can wire up an old floppy drive from the early 80s today, why would I not be able to hook up an old USB device in another 25 years. A 25-yr time capsule shouldn't be a terribly difficult thing. Once you get to 100+ years, I can understand needing to do a bit more planning (at that point, you've gotta at the very least include a complete machine to read the media). Oh, and as far as capacitors go, if you're that worried about them replace all the electrolytics with tantalums or somesuch. More expensive sure, but they don't dry out. Of course, if you use a high quality electrolytic it'll probably be fine too. Even if they do dry out, any decent sod with a soldering iron should be able to fix it in no time. Caps have been around a long-ass time, they aren't going anywhere.
I don't believe everything I read, but Archival Blu-Ray Disk (BD-R) are supposed to have a lifespan of 200 yrs.
A spindle of 10 disks is about $250.00.
So, if properly handled/sealed etc..., I think that even if it lasted only 1/4 of the lifespan they advertise, you got yourself a solution right there! :)
The following is the link to cd-freaks for the article on Archival Gold disks.
Archival Gold Article on CD-Freaks.com
Cheers!
I found a 2GB external scsi jazz drive in my closet. IT still works. Hell I bet they are still on ebay in 25 years...
How much data? Burn it to ROM chips. Alternative, if it needs to be moved in the future, make sure the device it's on can do some sort of basic serial communication (after all, once you have serial communication, now all you have to deal with is programming the protocols). Include paper copies of the protocols. Odd alternatives... Have it engraved on something. Print it out in bar codes. Store it on film.
...tattoo it on an enemy and seal him in the drum. ...or reduce it to a microdot (then try and FIND it in the drum). ...encode it as a self-replicating protein sequence. Wait, no that might be a bad idea...
Punched paper tape. That will never go out of style. CDs will develop holes from microscopic CD worms eating away at it. SATA drives will develop tin whiskers thanks to all the green folks making lead solder illegal (when lead won't do anything to harm you or the environment). USB keys from today won't work in 25 years when USB 11 comes out. Even the filesystems we use today won't be in use. FAT-32? ext2? HFS+? No computer around will be able to read that crap. Yup. Punched paper tape. Any idiot can build a punched paper tape reader in his garage. And paper lasts a LONG time.
McCain/Palin '08. Now THAT's hope and change!
What could ever replace the durability of magnetic tape? Duct tape maybe.
I don't think it will be the medium that will be the problem, it will be the message. Imagine the shock of those viewing it to learn that our generation thought that there weren't WMD in Iraq or that Han Solo shot first. I'd limit the contents of this a few MP3's and photos of the Whitehouse, otherwise your time capsule will last all of 5 minutes after being unearthed before its whisked away to the Ministry of Subversive Materials.
Actually, better forget the MP3s, or you'll be tracked down by the RIAA and sued for 25years of lost song rental income.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
he can add in a small laptop with a power adapter and a media reader (usb ports, card reader, optical drive, whatever he needs).
Make sure there's no DRM like WGA on the laptop.
---
How many proprietary dependencies do your archival backups have?
I would highly recommend ordering a single board computer which meets military specs, runs something like Linux, QNX, VxWorks, etc... and most importantly is interfacable through RS-232.
Milspec SBCs don't need to be expensive. In fact, often you can buy them off e-bay or other auction sites at a reasonable price. But the benefit of milspec systems is durability.
Most modern PCs, though being shipped with non-electrolytic capacitors are possibly capable of lasting longer than in the past are still consumer spec which means for the most part disposable. Military spec requires that the unit had survived an environmental testing regiment. Part of this includes that units have be shipped from east coast to west coast (U.S.) and back in the back of a 18 wheeler with no shock absorbers all the while in high heat and humidity or low temperature and dryness (or alternative combinations).
While this by no means guarantees the circuit will last 25 years under ground, in tact. It does mean that your chances are much higher.
RS-232 is a no brainer. Based on an earlier posting which referenced a Wang 10meg drive (which I have a functional system for actually hehe) it reminds me of the interface issue.
First of all USB, SATA, Firewire, etc... are all moving targets. They aim for backwards compatibility and there is a SMALL chance that USB version 9 or Firewire 64000 will support USB-2 or Firewire 400, I wouldn't bank on it any time soon. If for no other reason but USB, Firewire, and SATA devices are disposable. Therefore, while an occassional drive might come along that might still work, most companies won't care about testing it. Especially since the current move is to try and eliminate cables. So future versions of these standards might just be wireless or even fibre.
RS-232 is a standard which more or less is unchanged since the C revision of the standard published in 1969. That means the standard is already nearly 40 years old and we can still depend on it. What's more important is that it will be around for a while. If you doubt it, remember that the majority of the industrial world runs all their measurement and control equipment on RS-232 and much of this equipment dates back over 20 years.
What's more is that RS-232 is REALLY easy to implement. So if you were to contact ANY university level electronics student and ask them to start from scratch and implement an RS-232 UART (interface), they would be able to handle it blindfolded with their arms tied behind their backs while being forced to listen to ABBA. So, that means that if somehow RS-232 is GONE! by the time the capsule is openned, at the very least some student would be able to hack together something to read it.
As for file storage... I highly recommend that on that SBC, there is a copy of a library used to compress the files. So if you used JPEG, include the tarball for libjpeg for example. I'm sure these formats will be supported 25 years down the road, but just to play it safe you might want to include code. I'm sure C compilers will still be around (there is still COBOL).
For text documents, remember that even programs release by Microsoft may not be able to read current revisions of Word or Powerpoint. I actually make money by keeping a Word for DOS and Wordperfect for DOS virtual machine running for conversion. PDF is safer, especially if you include the source to XPDF which I have ported to another platform once in about 6 hours (not a clean and polished port, but one which reads files). Besides with a huge part of document archival industry using PDF, it'll be around for a while.
I wish you luck, makes me wonder if there's a market for a production time capsule PC company.
...cause you have your hopes of your grandchildren being geeks too high.
What about printing the photos? The only device you need then is people's eyes.
I'm sure that in 25 years you'll still be able to extract the audio out of them, and it won't be hard to find Spectrum emulators either.
Mod parent +1, really.
Brilliant. If you look 25 years into the future, just look 50 years into the past to see the amount of change.
I would add an Digital Optical link, but the Ethernet is sufficent. Imagine finding a device from years ago with a BNC connector. What would you do?
If you found a stack of punch cards, you could line them up, and OCR the data.
Does anyone think that tape storage is a good choice? I thought it has life expectancies of 50+ years? Sure the tape drive is expensive, but not really if you are trying to preserve 1TB of data.
Engravings in stone have been shone to last thousands of years. All of the 0's and 1's on a cd could be engraved in stone tablets. The stack for a single cd has been calculated to reach to the moon so you'd also get a free moon elevator out of it.
IMHO the best 'viable' option is the 'card-computer' combo. The other logical option is to store it in a long-term non-magnetic storage support. Kinda of payrus, metal, stone. You will have to store: - The data in a visible caracters. - The mathematical algorithm to read the format. - One color coding schema. - The mathematical algorithm to decode the compressed image format.
how about uploading them as a private album on picasa and burying the link instead? and for redundancy you could do the same with flickr and all the other web album sites, just in case google doesn't survive the next 25 years :P
It comes in little packets which generally have "do not eat" printed on them.
No matter what solution he goes with I hope he stuffs a couple of handfuls of them in there.
No sig today...
On high quality paper with really good inks. this is the only way to avoid data loss.
Considering the Canon 1Ds III
# 21 MP full frame CMOS (5616 x 3744)
# 14-bit A/D processing
Normal printing resolution is 300 dot/inch which gives us 18.8 x 12.48. nice posters.
Unfortunately, I'm not aware that we can can print anything close to the 14 bith depth of the image.
So print will always represent a data loss.
what about modulating the picture into sound and saving it on an lp or gramophone record? of course you can print out some instructions on how to demodulate the signal and bury that as well.
...for greatest number of redundant posts ever.
No sig today...
That'd be why he said: " ....not the least of which is outdated technology 25 years from now"
No sig today...
bury a small radio receiver. my thinking is that if you aim and transmit the images into space, you can get the signal to bounce off a plant in exactly 12.5 years (give or take a few years for doppler effects and the expanding/contracting of the universe) and the signal will return back to earth just in time for you to receive it in 25 years.
not the least of which is heat resistance to welding temperatures....
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
You'd probably want to use some sort of EM shielding (Faraday cage or similar)
Like perhaps some type of, oh I don't know, steel vessel, welded shut?!?
As for the EM shielding you should not only use a Faraday cage as it only protects from electrostatic field, but also some kind of material which can absorb magnetic fields by generating eddy currents. It might have critical importance if you use thumb drives or hard drives.
You need a "micro-etched nickel alloy disc three inches (7.62 cm) across with 2,000 year life expectancy".
That is what these guys are using: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Project
Previously discussed: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/25/0312229
I'm echoing the suggestions to store the images in an analog format. Best bang for the buck in terms of archival storage.
Specifically, I'd suggest negative film, black and white, selenium toned, archivally stored. Glass is good, modern film stock no less so. Maco in Germany produces a film stock that is rated for 500 years under ideal conditions with appropriate development and sufficient fixing; 25 years should be a breeze.
If you need to store colour, shoot separations with registration marks, clearly labelled. In the Future(tm), these can then be scanned and the channels combined in whatever imaging software they will be using.
Film, aside from its physical longevity and resistance to decay, has a very specific, simple advantage: it is *immediately* clear what the item is, and how to use it. You don't have to include instructions, hex dumps, computers, or anything else. You look at a neg (or a positive transparency), and it's pretty obvious how to derive an image, because the image is, you know, visible.
Caveat: I'm an analog photographer. While digital photography has its uses, none of them tally with what I do.
Just have a url to where you store the pics engraved onto the inside of the capsule. Then don't forget to pay you domain renewals for the next 25 years.
Don't worry about the medium. I guarantee you that, by the time your sons are of the age to appreciate porn, there'll be a lot more high-quality, likely even 3d, available porn. I know it's an important father-son bonding event to find one's father's porn under the bed, but I think you might just be going a bit overboard on this. Buy a couple magazines and be done with it.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Then upload it to gmail. I'm sure it can survive for more than 25 years, even if google bankrupts.
Interesting idea (I want my coffin to have a satellite uplink, FWIW), but at the same time... that could be a bit creepy. Then again... 100 years from now, someone will probably have our posts on this little thread stored on some storage medium marked 'internet circa 2010', collecting dust with the rest of their backups. In that sense, all of our information will still be here, although no one is going to read what we had to say (except for our relatives or children).
;)
I've been meaning to add a section to my will that I want all of my source code uploaded to sourceforge under GPL when I die. Same kind of idea as you've got, albeit in a different format. Then again, 100 years from now, we'll both be dead^H^H^H^Hasleep
When I look at it that way, it's not so important.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
1) We live in an era of PLASTICS. We have some real bada$$ plastics around, that 25 years is nothing to. We are looking for materials that are airtight, and obviously humidity-tight. That's not the problem.
2) Are we debating that we cannot figure out how to maintain simple _binary_ data for a generation? I cannot believe it. To think in a box, you can think out of the box.
3) Another consideration, is the size of the data. Are we talking 1-2 pictures, or a few GB?
One picture PRINTED... is STILL binary data to the eye or the brain.
-Neurosis should be taken out in sex instead of politics and IT.
Just read the bits out one by one. That way you can pass it on to your children and children's children once you know it by heart. In 25 years you then just enter the data into whatever is available by then.
Turn it into a religion if it needs to survive more then average time. It might cost several million lives in the future, but your data will still be available.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Render the bits as a 2D barcode, print them on silver halide black and white film. That's going to last 100 years easily, probably many hundreds. Include the decoding algorithm, and as long as there are optical scanners they'll be able to read it. Odds are that even 50 years from now barcode scanners would be able to just read it.
Pump your data out to a BIG star 12.5 light years away using a big antenna and as much power as you can muster. Spend much time on creating the very best receiver to capture the return in 25 years. Burying stuff is for squirrels - Men go to the stars!
If you want to get serious about long term data integrity look at the storage and maintaince of the torah. Each comunity will keep several copies in the traditional form, treated leather with a fairly stable ink. Over the course of a year the entire text is read word by word with two observers looking over the shoulder of the reader and additional listeners following with more convenient copies just waiting to jump on any mistake. If the readers/observers find worn lettering, that copy gets swapped out for further examination. Now multiple all that (and more) by however many jewish communities follow those traditions all over the wolrd. So if you really care about long term storage, you might just have to start a new religion.
Go with a 6" SCH80 PVC pipe with well "welded" endcaps. Put a smaller pipe inside it, also sealed, with dessicant packs inside it. Seal the items in vacuum bags similar to food storage bags . Water is not going to get inside!
Interestingly the BBC ran a project in 1986 to celebrate the 900th birthday of the original Doomsday project. The system comprised of 12 inch laserdisks, and the hardware needed to read them. Today, only 20 years later, you'd be hard pressed to find any way of reading those disks without the orignal hardware. Unlike the original 900 year old copy... http://www.atsf.co.uk/dottext/domesday.html
Put the photos on an SD card, include a digital picture frame compatible with that SD card, and seal both up with one of those vacuum-seal gizmos used for food storage. Maybe even repeat a couple of times, so that there are multiple "layers" of sealing. Seems like that would protect it from moisture, and guarantee that the photos will be viewable.
Surely being a time capsule, you would want to store the content on the most prevalent media of today, as the media itself should be representative of the time the content was created.
Don't bother burying the thing. Just put the pictures on a laptop overnight. Then, for the next 25 years, work on inventing the flux capacitor. Travel back in time and get the laptop.
Storing digital pictures as barcodes comes as... odd to me. I have an idea: why not print them out and store the paper on which they are printed inside the time capsule ?!?
Three main reasons (well a fourth one too) :
- Data types.
Printed picture can only store picture.
2D barcodes could store anything that can have a digital representation : audio (kids singing a song could be fun), video, etc.
Given the current speed at which format evolve, are phased out, and replaced be something new - The only alternative to store audio would be to write it in grooves (vinyl discs ?) and count on the fact that building a proper player is a sunday after noon project requiring nothing more that a paper cone and a needle.
(Basically the same idea of "don't use hitech, use something stupid that you could manually re-extract" as the 2D barcode vs. current storage device)
- Data density.
Basically you store 1 picture per sheet of paper. Whereas paper disk claims 1MB raw per sheet of paper with their technique. And probably more recent algorithms using higher DPI could even squeeze more raw data per area of paper. (Specially because most of the popular current 2D barcode are designed to be readable even with crappy webcams of current phones. Whereas, the current project could use whatever is best (good hi quality scanner) and will anyway be extracted after 25 years by which time huge quality improvement are to be expect - crapphone will probably have sufficient quality cams, if they still exist around).
And that's raw capacity, before compressing the data.
- Data redundancy.
With printed-out picture, the only way to have redundancy is to print 2 copies of each picture, and the only way to restore them is to carefully cut'n'past bit using an x-blade and glue.
Once you are digital there are lots of ways to reduce the impact of degradation : be it reed-solomon style redudancy so missed bits won't matter, or larger scale redundancy (a-la RAID style XOR blocks).
The resulting increase of space requirement is much smaller than printing everything 2x, and leaves more room in the box for more data sheet and thus even more documents.
- Colours.
To have a printed photo survive 25 years, you have to print it with inks that will remain stable for all that period, including retaining the exact intensity and hue.
Even old black and white photographs have turned brown currently.
And if you want to print colour picture today, you'll have to have 4 different paper inks that will have to stay exactly the same for 25 on a paper substrate. Otherwise you'll have a smeared blurry pale picture.
Whereas, with 2D barcode, you'll probably only need 1 single colour (black or whatever is the most stable) and only keep it distinguishable between painted and un-painted dot - as it's only digital. The shades don't matter. And in case somewhere the ink has definitely became unreadable, see above post about redundancy.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Just get the bits out of whatever you're trying to archive and chisel the ones and zeros into stone tablets. In 25 years, dig them up, run some OCR on them and reconvert them into electrical bits rather than rock bits.
Write the decoding algorithm using a very basic language like c and leave a printout of the code along with the encoded data {...} they will be able to {...} translate it to their language of choice.
-Your biggest problem would probably be about the data itself. once the extract the bitstream how do they decode it to information. Hopefully people will still be able to decode jpegs, mp3s, and text documents. if not you will need to give them algorithms to those as well. (but for 25 years i think this should not be a problem)
decoding the data it self (going from paper to binary data) could easily be done as you mention.
for the decompression, I'm a little bit more pessimistic.
Few of the 25 years old compression scheme are still in use today. Maybe JPEGs and MP3s will be kept around a little bit longer because of their popularity.
The problem is that these algorithms are long and complex.
Providing C-source code might help (it can stay inside the bitstream for space economy - it's a two stage procedure : clear text english and C code are used to extract the 2D barcode into a stream containing both compressed and plain files ; then the plain files help implement the various required compressors), but only if there are C-compiler compatible with modern ones after 26 year. ...lady and gentleman, I think we finally found the perfect purpose for the BrainFuck language !
It could be useful to also provide a decompression library compiled into some simple bytecode for which it would be trivial to reimplement a virtual machine - much less coding efforts than re-writing a whole bunch of JPEG, MP3, LZMA, etc... handlers. Specially if the virtual machine is really simplistic.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Only One Way Has Been Demontrated To Work.
Ink on Paper. (Stone is not going to work in a time cap)
Its not eco-popular. Its just real, baby.
Its the only technology where someone stored info and someone else,
picked up the media,
and retrieved the info 25yr,50yr,100yr,1000yr+ later.
The ONLY one.
Sorry.
p.s.
If you are going to use barcode, include a spec in natural-language(english) on how to read barcode.
The biggest problem with time capsules is moisture - see if you can get a bit of a vacuum going before you seal it up. Add some silica desiccant gel and at least there will be something that has not rotted inside your box.
FWIW A CD will probably be you best bet, there are bound to be CD compatible devices around for decades and if you chose a nice popular format for the pictures you should find yourself up and running easily.
We've all seen them in malls the glass cubes with a 3d photo made out of laser etched bubbles.
If you could make a cube 1,000,000 x 1,000,000,000 x 1,000,000 bubbles you could store 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes of data plus it would be nigh on indestructible as glass is very resistant to corrosion, unaffected by cold/damp/heat/vibration and to a lesser degree radiation and would not run out of power. You could also leave instructions on how to read the data engraved on the cube.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
Set up a bank safety deposit box. Keep the data in there. Put the key in the capsule in an envelope labeled "if media is unreadable, backup store here". Refresh it every few years with current media.
Couldn't be bothered to read the entire thread right now... But don't forget the dessicant!! Also, I'm thinking CD-ROMs would be the way to go... I'd be hard pressed to believe that nobody will have SOMEthing to read them with in a mere 25 years.
The "amateur 2 cents worth"-to-"professional advice" ratio in this thread is awesome!
AT&ROFLMAO
Why not put three copies of all media with three identical laptops capable of reading said media. That way if one or two or even all three break, it ought to be possible to cobble together at least one working one. Also, it would be better to not use laptops, but desktops because they are in general more amenable to tinkering with.
...
First: fill the chamber with dry Nitrogen gas to reduce the chance of corrosion.
Second: paint the steel with a good epoxy or other water resistant paint (research what's used on submarines / ships' hulls.)
Third: if one storage technology is good, two or three are better. I'd go for CD, DVD and Blu-Ray, followed by Compact Flash, SD Flash and USB thumb drive Flash. Yes, the different flash standards are redundant - but redundancy isn't a bad thing, and I'd make my copies on different media instead of three copies on a single type.
Fourth: As has been suggested above, I'd include a mini-notebook or other computer with ports to read the media - a blu-ray drive might be on the pricey side today, but I'm guessing it has the best longevity, and if you can afford it, it will be a kick for the capsule openers to see the "exotic cutting edge" tech that was phased out a decade ago. The mini-notebook should include a Gigabit ethernet and wireless 802.11n interface, I suspect those, and possibly USB, will be the only standards still in use in 25 years. Oh, and remove the battery. Not sure if there's a reason to store the battery in your capsule, it could be a big liability. If you feel you must store the battery, at least discharge it first, and consider giving it it's own welded steel compartment.
Fifth: keep an online backup. I've had a website for 10 years, and the photos on it are just as accessible today as they were 10 years ago. The cost over 25 years might be a little high, my host might charge around $3000 for 25 years of service, but your data will be "buried" with terabytes of other people's data, redundantly backed up, and periodically re-formatted to keep up with evolving tech.
Think back to 1983 - RS-232 was the interface du-jour, and you can still buy some new commodity machines with it. Ethernet was just getting started, competing with token ring, X-25 and all manner of other networks. There's no way to tell what will be available in 25 years, but if all goes well, it shouldn't be too hard to retrieve your photos. 50 years is probably another story....
Over 25 years connectors have changed a hell of a lot: The most popular keyboard connector in 1983 was DIN, then PS/2 in the late 80s and early 90s, then USB in the late 90s and early 2000s. It was possible, with an adapter, to use a 1983 keyboard on a PC up until most PCs eschewed with the PS/2 keyboard adapter a few PC generations back.
USB may well survive, but I'm doubtful; even RS-232 didn't last that long.
SATA almost certainly will not survive beyond a decade or so. Disk drive interfaces have tended to last only about 5 years, with another 5 or so of backward compatibility. Someone will start shouting "IDE IDE" I'm sure, or maybe "SCSI" from some old hats. But the IDE drive connector standard is just 14 years old and the last round of computers I bought a bit more than a year ago had no IDE connectors at all. Trying to connect an IBM AT drive to a modern PC will be an experience ... I was unable to connect drives from the early to mid 90s within 10 years.
I will be surprised if peripherals even use electrical interconnects 25 years from now. Think optical, baby.
I don't have any good ideas related to long-term digital storage. I have experience with this going back more than 20 years now and the experience is mostly bad. I do have 25 year old floppies that still work, but they need 15+ year old PCs to read them.
The good news, I suppose, is that those old PCs do still work. (I have a Kaypro II that I boot up occasionally.) If I really wanted to do this I would put a whole laptop full of data with a non-flash drive system in a baggie, fill the baggie with an inert gas, seal it up real good, then seal that in the box. If it all works 25 years from now you're good to go; if it doesn't maybe you can still talk to the drive. Maybe.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
...
Of course you must have a few gold disks laying around... maybe talk to NASA and see if they have any left over.
When those around you are loosing their heads while you are keeping yours, maybe you've misunderstood the situatiuation.
a photo album. store as analog. preserve. let future people(?) translate to digital in the format of the day.
A hand up and a foot on every chest...
use gold dvds and flood the time capsule with CO2 or some other suitable gas which will prevent any corrosion.
prepare the survey weasels.
Any data stored on magnetic media might be degraded by electromagnetic fields generated by certain types of welding. I tried to look up examples but couldn't find anything. Just a warning then to do your homework if you decide to use any magnetic media.
He really just needs to throw the photos in a black hole, because, as Hawking proved, black holes don't destroy information.
SIGSEGV caught, terminating
wait... not that kind of sig.
You could put in a digital picture frame then you will only have to hope 110 volts is still around.
... just post it on the internets... I'm fairly sure it'll be around in 25 years...
Yup. I'd suggest one of the older Asus EEE PC models, they're cheap and their primary storage is flash. If I remember right flash is even more durable than CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.
Just bury the CD. That type of media is both hugely popular, and there still doesn't seem to be anything on the horizon to replace its role. You won't be able to use your IDE CDROM drive in 25 years, but you will be able to go buy a CDROM drive that has the interface du jour.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
NASA had a similar problem when they wanted to send images from earth on one of the voyager space probes. They wanted something that would last much longer that 25 years! What they ended up with was a phonograph record! So maybe an old Tarbel cassette interface recorded onto a metal phonograph record
(gold plated of course) would be the answer.
Do like you are planning and place a CD a DVD and a CD/DVD Rom drive in, also place in a USB drive and a USB card. In the event that the devices are no longer in use, I'm sure that they could be reverse engineered to be connected to whatevers next.
Only thing I'd be concerned over is what state would the electronics be in 25 years having been burried. Even though they are in a container and sealed, there will still be moisture in the container from the air.
You may also want to include a schematic of a CD/DVD Drive just in case, or at least a description of how it works, on paper of course.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Take the images and run them through uuencode.
Take the printable ascii output and dump it to paper tape.
That will easily last 25 years if properly sealed with dehydration materials.
(You may need to put a paper tape reader in the package too, along with instructions on how to interface to it.)
I have boxes and boxes full of old Commodore 64 floppies and tapes from the early 1980s. As fragile as we were told these media were back then, and as much use and abuse as theyve had (including years of storage in a basement) I'd say over 75% of them work great still. Dont know how many pictures C64 disks would store though haha. But perhaps multiple copies of tape backups?
So anyway- WHERE are you burying this thing? You wouldn't be residing in coastal California would you? Or somewhere near, say, New Madrid, Missouri?
...from 1984 that are still readable today. They hold 360k and are single sided. It's not like you can't buy 3.5" diskette drives now either. So I'd say find a decade old form of storage that has been around long enough to have at least a proven track record (CD-R is decent, but so is HD) and go with that. I'm sure you'll still be able to find CD-ROM compatible readers in 25 years. If not, wait about another 500 years or so and human machine hybrid descendants will be able to read them without any external devices. :)
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
If some one were to have asked me to do this 25 years ago. I might have recorded the data to a 9 track tape. There are still many tape drives that can read this. Or I could have stored in on a 10MB hard drive. I still have a couple of old computers that us these drives, an old Compaq and a "real" IBM PC (made by IBM) 25 years is not all that long. All you need to do is keep a a couple computers in your garage or attic and then dig them out in 25 years. Most of the same people who burried the recording will still be around in 25 years. They will remember wht to do. Now if you were to want to keep it burried for 500 years that would be a much more "fun" project.
Next. I'm pretty sure I actully have some 25 year old digital music. When did CDs frt come out? About 25 years ago, I think. I bought them when they first came out and still save the CD and they work just like new. 25 years is just not that long.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned the disk format from the Rosetta Project, tho' it may be waaaay overkill for this ;)
I expect Ethernet and USB to be the most usable interfaces in 25 years.
I would put a small computer in loaded with software capable of playing the files, do the whole thing on CD, and flash, I wouldn't count on the HD's working.
I'd also make sure to put in some desiccant and a plastic liner, and even some insulating layer to help reduce thermal cycling.
Another entirely different approach is to just UUENCODE the file and print them out.
Then in 25 years these can be OCR'ed and UUDECODED back to JPEG's.
Also include a printout of UUDECODE just to be safe.
I am always doing that which I can not do, in order that I may learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso
Put the files in gmail, Amazon S3, me.com, and a few other equivalents. Put the userids & passwords to these accounts in your underground box (written on acid-free paper.) With luck one of these services will still be around in 25 years.
How about using network attached storage instead? A Cat5e connection will likely still be used in the future, given that buildings are built with the wiring in the walls, and certainly are built to last 25 years. And given that all major flavours of OS's can access NAT storage, it will likely still be supported for quite some time to come. Of course, the media the NAT storage device uses (as well as the hardware itself) will need to last as well.
So are you just looking for a way to hide your pron collection from your girlfriend/wife?
Dude! There are easier ways.
-Goran
Carpe Scrotum - The only way to deal with your competition.
Actually, he'd probably fly to the future, figure out some way to copy the pictures onto whatever digital media they're using then, dig a hole and bury it in the middle of the night there in the future before he comes back to the present. Of course, that would be risk because then he'd know too much about the digital media of the future. He'd have to be careful not to say anything to anyone, because then there'd be a bunch of people saying "oh, that would never work!" and the technology wouldn't get developed, making his future copies unreadable.
Alexander Peter Kristopeit bought his basement from his mommy for one dollar.
I would use the largest DVD medium available at the time. A bit by bit copy can be made to get the data off if needed. If it is on a HDD then if it does not start up it will be longer and more expensive to get to the data. Flash memory can have the same issues. Heck if you need to, store a DVD reader in the same container so it can be used (maybe). Atleast have the technical spec's of the device along with medium used.
--
My parents went to Slashdot and all I got was this lousy sig.
http://www.sandisk.com/Corporate/PressRoom/PressReleases/PressRelease.aspx?ID=4353
25 years *ago*, if memory serves, we had 128k 5.25" floppies and MFM HDDs attaching to ISA-8 sockets. We stored songs on record and audio tape.
Looking around now. It would be hard to find a 5.25" floppy (though not impossible), or MFM interface. ISA too is gone, having been replaced with PCI.
Records would be dead, though they are not, because of some audiophiles, and tape-decks can still be found.
To me, this implies that consumer AV products have a haight longevity than PC equipment (though the small number of PCs relative to tape-decks 25-years ago might also not be applicable today.
So from a standpoint of "what could someone read", DVD-ROM comes screaming to mind. It's very widespread in the cosumer market, and technologies are likely to remain backwards compatable (and then available) for quite a while.
Longevity of the media is another question. Without light, I believe CD-RW and DVD-RW have very long shelf-lives. Tape technologies (LTO) are designed to last longer, but are more expensive and it may be more difficult to find a working reader later.
One other technology that showed a high longevity was the serial port (still accessable today). Anything with a USB interface operating on an established format (I can still read the oldest FAT stuff on my modern PC) would be a likely winner as well.
Don't mess about with neon or helium. The only reasonable contenders are nitrogen and argon, because they're both dirt-cheap. Little-known fact is that argon is the third most common gas in the atmosphere, even more prevalent than CO2, while neon is 1000 times as rare and helium lower yet (although that's not how we get helium.) Argon's perfect: completely inert (unless you have fluorine or chlorine gas and open sparks in your container, in which case you have bigger problems) and really inexpensive. Filling your entire bathroom with argon would cost like $5.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
why not bury the data with the computer, that way when you dig it up in 25 years, you will have the capability to handle the data mediums with it, still do not bet only on hdd working, have a combination of atleat 2 hdd-s(ide and sata), cd, dvd and the thumb drive, chances are one of them will work. the motherboard will be dead by then tho, along with the psu(electrolyte capacitors don't last forever) maybe remove all electrolytes before burying so they wont leak and corrode all your hardware. also you might want to fill the capsule with inert gas like co2 not just plain air(humidity + oxygen + 25 years = figure it out yourself). also make it so all the drives are bootable. optical disks are the least likely to survive, just to note. imho ssd memory would be the most likely to survive
Those are well neigh indestructible. Low density, sure. But even a nuclear EMP will not affect them and a substantially high temperature is needed to melt them. You may need a couple of truck loads for your photos though...
The problem is that solid state drives suffer from bit rot as others have described here.
That is why a traditional hard drive, or even better optical media, would be preferred. When not used and kept out of the elements (most notably very extreme temperatures or intense full-spectrum light from the sun) a CD or DVD would last far longer than 25 years.
Also, after 25 years it is doubtful that any PC or laptop will work.
I have a 24 year old Coleco ADAM that still works (this from a product that had a high failure rate when it was introduced in 1983, but that was due to firmware bugs and printer problems). I also have an 8-bit Atari computer manufactured 25 years ago that also turns on. I use neither very often at all--they've sat for periods of years between some uses as they sit in storage normally.
The CMOS battery will likely leak all over the place
Lithium batteries are quite durable and though they probably won't last 25 years they wouldn't destroy components. Since they'd likely discharge you might as well remove them entirely; most machines do not need the battery at all to boot up into some sort of workable state.
and the electrolytic capacitors will not work very well after 25 years (electrolytic capacitors also do poorly when they are unused for long periods of time)
Electrolytic capacitors do have a limited life. Crappy Chinese ones last 5 years and maybe less. The capacitors in old home PCs from the 80s were generally sourced from Japan and have a much longer lifespan. Also your contention that unused capacitors don't last as long is wrong; under heavy use, when temperature increases, they ware out faster. These days you can also get electrolytic capacitors that employ solid conductive polymers for the electrolytic layer--they are dry to start with so they don't dry out, and lifespan can approach 30 years under normal use. Such capacitors when unused would degrade very little in storage. These days such capacitors are more commonplace. Capacitors degrade fairly gradually when they're not defective--the majority slowly become open circuits, and they are used in fairly forgiving places such as DC power regulation, not in timing, clock, RF, etc.
The key is to include the media and a carefully selected player. It need not be a notebook--it could be just the drive itself with a USB connection, or a little DVD player. If you're really worried/paranoid you can crack it open to see if wet capacitors are used and replace them with solids. Anyways, capacitors don't change fast enough, they are a lump of something with 2 wires. I'm sure such components could be replaced easily (unlike ASICs and firmware and whatnot).
People make it sounds like a capsule being sent into space or encased in cement for centuries. It'll only be 25 years! We use CDs today and they existed 25 years ago, and IDE devices have been made for over 20 years and todays PATA connectors are compatible right back to the start. RS232-to-USB adapters exist to let you talk to devices from the 1970s. If you go spelunking on the 'net long enough you can find all sorts of specs and protocols. I talk to computer systems that exceed 20 years old quite often through work, where computers/processors sometimes see 30 years of use.
It is probably quite enough to just include the media and a bit of docs on the encoding methods/file formats (ISO9660 with JPEG and MPEG2, etc...), but for convenience you could put in a USB drive or a simple player or PC like the eee. That takes care of the hard stuff--figuring out how to use a 4-line serial bus with widely published specs and the like is trivial. The drive is the potential gotcha here--try to find 8" or even 5.25" drives is hard, but hacking up the means to connect to one that you've got is still easy today.
.....y'ought to chisel that sucker in binary!
Sorry, I didn't see the AC OP.
If you are looking for large capacity PROMs, Xilinx manufactures the XC17* line intended for long-term configuration-storage for their FPGA's, but they could certainly be used for other purposes.
The datasheet specifies a "Guaranteed 20 year life data retention"
http://datasheet.digchip.com/534/ds073.pdf
I'm not sure if this is a true fusable link PROM or a windowless EPROM, but it does come in sizes up to 16Mbit (XC17V16) and can be cascaded.
Everyone is speculating here on what may or may not happen. There are pros and cons to any media type. I think you should make 2 copies in each media put them all in and check in 25 years to see which one wins. Flash (chose any connector, or use multiple) HDD (ditto for connectors) CD DVD Blu-Ray Floppy (both 5.25" and 3.5") others?
Just throw in exchangeable ROM (not EE or UV erasable) chips in something like a very simple low-tech computer with a simple RS-232 serial port and use separate paper teleprinter/teletype.
:)
Electronics should be very low-tech and simple and mechanical teleprinter would be very easily fixed if broken while underground.
That should be basic to more complex machinery placed under a simple computer and it's mechanical I/O . Make everything redundant, with self-checks etc, etc, etc.
Perhaps it would be a good thing to add a simple AM radio-modem (creating one with simple TTL7400 and some RLC circuitry is trivial).
Of course, I'm assuming people will understand things like today's locally spoken/written languange, latin alphabet and ascii-art
It is always better to be a first grade version of yourself than a second grade version of someone else.
Put redundant copies, 2 CDs, 2 DVDs, and 2 Blueray discs. Store the file multiple times on each disk. Guaranted any decent undel app should find the files in it's entirety. The problem is reading them. may have to store them as RAW or BMP. .jpg format will be lost!
Soon we may have super progressive future scan JPG and the standard
How much is your data worth? Back it up now.
Because if that comment is offtopic, then I am the anthropomorphic mascot of an evil corporation.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
The ancient Egyptians figured this out thousands of years ago. No digital medium has a life span (today) of 25 years. Tried to read a tape/disk/MO written 15 years ago? Papyrus, clay/stone tablets etc. have a longer life span, only need carbon units (people) to interpret them - no "technology" of ANY age is necessary. Of course, if there are not people ... who cares to see the pictures? ;-)
Something that has lasted a very long time is ethernet. I can't imagine that that standard is likely to change too much. Same with HTTP and basic HTML. Therefore, I vote that you create your own device with a DVD drive attached to a small server that will create a network to which a computer can connect if attached by ethernet. Then it would serve the content of the DVD.
This should probably only be attempted by the adventurous and hardware savvy, as you would want to design your own hardware that is not powered by a CMOS battery.
I woud use the same solutions that have been selected and approved by national libraries.
The "Century-Disc" is the support media used for long time archiving at the BNF (french national library).
Apparently it's a glass CD/DVD media developped by the frenh company "Plasmon". :
It is said to have the following resistance ability
Definitely a choice to consider !
Source : Google translation of a french slide
With most of these storage methods not being all that physically large why not put them all in there? CD-ROM, DVD, Blu-Ray, SATA drive, usb thumb drive.
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
I think a welded-shut steel box would fit the bill for a faraday cage. I don't think there's much need for EEPROM. That's the stuff you can erase and rewrite, which probably won't be necessary. How about regular old-school ROM chips? you know, the kind that store data by frying traces off the die. Then your only problem would be interfacing, which wouldn't be harder than programming a USB-enabled PIC chip to work like a normal thumbdrive.
How about a binary print out of the file :)
If only one could get that wonderful feeling of accomplishment without having to accomplish anything.
At first, I was going to say just put in an micro-SD card, because it's bleeding edge tech, it's going to be increasing in data density for a long time, and you're probably not going to see anything smaller due to the limitations of the human fingers to grip things.
But then I realized: There are people still using *slide projectors*, the Cream of *1960* technology. We put a selection of slides into our class time capsule, and initially I was concerned we wouldn't be able to find a carousel slide projector for the 20th reunion, and I don't think it'll be a problem. ;)
So what I'm saying is: use the most current tech there is now, and don't worry about it being completely unrecognizable in 25 years. You might need some "old" tech, but you'll most likely be okay. Especially if eBay is still around. ;)
Well the solution is "punched paper tape". While the data density is terrible, it can survive for centuries if a PET film tape is used as the medium. These where once used for CNC machines (mills, lathes, etc) as they could survive many uses in a very harsh environment without destruction. Even a paper tape reader could be included in the archive as they are small and could be easily repaired to replace any degraded electronics (think: "caps"), or enhanced to support whatever communications medium currently is being used. Coupled with a really good ECC encoding and you have a very stable solution. While data density is an issue, any small format storage is very fragile and subject to long term corruption.
Either that or fill it with an inert gas such as nitrogen. Since it's going to be welded shut that shouldn't be a problem.
since you seem to intend using a steel container welded shut, i'd recommend filling it with argon -should help with the preservation of whatever you intend to store in it
why not visit a foreign country, like www.philosophorum.org ? plenty of moose there
Well, my kaypro II still works.. so it is possible.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Store the negatives of the photographs. There are ways of generating negatives even for pictures taken using a digital camera. You can also consider microfilm.
These are easy to store as well. It just needs to be stored in a very dry box.
This comment is burried so far down that probably nobody will ever read it, but I was thinking that a glass master might would probably last 25 years. You can get one made at any place that presses CDs - it will be (relatively) cheap and should last.
or else!
I think this is a much better solution than barcodes.
Well technically that's what I named *2D* bar codes in my previous post. Not a peculiar 2D implementation. Just any dot pattern with sufficient error tolerance (Reed-Solomon). /.)
(And in fact, I think that Paper Back was the first implementation of 2D Barcode-as-a-backup that I saw when it was mentioned on
But basically yeah, that's the sort of things I would have imagined.
And opensource, so you can print the source code of the software too.
Well in paperback's case the situation has a small problem : PaperBack is a Windows-only application. And is almost guaranteed to be worthless after 25 years (for the time-capsule usage that the question's author wanted)
(Microsoft won't necessarily be still around by then nor be in the same business - see IBM - and they have a history of average quality of backward compatibility - on one hand they always try to keep the same hacks so major product relying on bugs could still work, but on the other hand lots of things break after each major revision).
It would be better to have the source code of some implementation which remotely has some chance to still be usable after 25 years and thus, with lots of luck, could still be used as-is to extract back the data (whereas the current Paperback will have to be rewritten anyway).
For exemple : maybe it will be better to rewrite Paperback as a POSIX-compliant code now. And print that code on the paper along with the dot-patterns (the "2d barcodes")
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
My fault. Paperback was already mentioned and I missed it.
However, let's keep the discussion. I think that because Linux ABI incompatibilities from time to time, and because of projects like Wine, the only universal binaries that will exist in the future are precisely Win32 exe files, provided that they don't use any hidden API.
In fact, if I wanted to write commercial software that runs in Linux, I would simply use Wine and Win32 and stop worrying about distro dependencies.
If binaries can be used 25 years from now (and Wine will become even more important if Win32 dissapears), source code will surely be used.
About 2D barcodes... shouldn't they be called dotcodes instead?
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
I think that because Linux ABI incompatibilities from time to time, and because of projects like Wine, the only universal binaries that will exist in the future are precisely Win32 exe files, provided that they don't use any hidden API.
I was more thinking of source based approach.
If the decoder uses plain C99 or POSIX- or ANSI- C (i.e. simply opens input picture stream decodes data writes to output data stream) chances are it will happily compile with a good C-compiler if those things are still around (and given the longevity of things like Fortran 77, we can safely count on it).
Whereas, if decoder relies on Win32 API, this kind of thing is slightly less likely.
If Microsoft goes down relatively fast in the near future, Win32 API will probably be their latest major API that most legacy emulator will strive to support. And given the popularity of Windows application today, it is likely that those will be still supported by the emulation community (see success of FreeDOS, DOSbox, DOSemu - we can infere similar success for ReactOS, Wine, qemu&vbox etc.).
But if Microsoft holds for some time, there's a chance that they could manage to phase out the current Win32 API and both future version and their emulators will only support the future API. (See how support for Win16 is mostly unavailable).
That's why I was advocating for the more stable standard C code route rather for some fancy graphical software. Besides, are nice windows really needed for that purpose.
In fact, if I wanted to write commercial software that runs in Linux, I would simply use Wine and Win32 and stop worrying about distro dependencies.
And your opinion is shared by some companies who rely on Wine and Winelibs for their official Linux port.
Corel used to do it for WordPerfect.
EVE online does it too.
About 2D barcodes... shouldn't they be called dotcodes instead?
I don't know where the name comes from. Yup, I agree that it generates confusion and some people would mostly think of stacked bar codes whereas 2D dot-matrixes are referred to.
But in fact dotcodes aren't entirely correct too, because some variant don't rely on codes. /. which rely on a labyrinthine network of lines.
- stacked barcodes exists (although terribly inefficient)
- some systems rely on different shapes like UPS using a hexagonal grid instead of a dotpattern.
- I've even seen system mentioned on
Maybe 2D graphically encoded data should be better ? or 2D-engrams ?
But yeah dotcodes covers the most popular variation and people get the main idea.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
Just dump the entire contents of the data files in ASCII format into an e-mail message, at the top type "Send this message to five friends before sundown and something lucky will happen to you before morning -- refuse to send it and bad luck will be yours before noon tomorrow!" and send it off to half a million random addresses. In 25 years, just sign up for the email address Aardvark@slashdot.org * and it will come back to you!!!
*YMMV, but the folks at say it's better than zebra@slashdot.org.
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