I'm going to sign off here, because I'm getting pretty fed up with your insulting "you're just out of college" bullshit and I no longer give a fuck what you think. Not that you deserve to know, but I'm in my thirties and I've been a professional programmer for many years. I work with a lot of old and off-spec hardware and data, both at home and in my professional capacity. And, I'm fairly sure you're just carrying this argument on to be an assole, not because you actually have any real problem with what I'm saying. It's a typical Slashdot pissing match between a working stiff (me) and a dried-up, pointy headed, effete intellectual snob (you).
I explained very carefully that the standard I envisioned would REQUIRE backwards compatability. So if you wanted to claim that your hardware was compliant with the standard, you would have to be backwards compatible. This is how standards work.
Offer incentives to companies to follow the standard, and once the standard starts to be accepted, market pressures maintain it.
As far as point number 1 goes, I think you're reaching -- it's a flaky argument. It isn't as though we're going to suddenly forget how to code for ISO 9660 (or any other format now that everything has trickled down to PCs and zillions of people have access). In fact, now that almost everything is digital, and distributed over the web, it's unlikely *anything* will ever be forgotten *again*. Think I'm full of it? Trust me, if you can think of it, someone out there has it, knows how it works, and has probably done a writeup of it. Think I'm kidding? As a hobby, I rebuild old military-spec laptops and use them as my home development kits (FreeBSD, C++, etc). When I was initially tinkering with them, I found out that there were no drivers available for the CardBus sockets the laptop had on board (or for a few other things). Within a couple of days, I found a guy who had drivers I could download, which enabled me to connect an external CD-Rom to the machine and do some work with it. I later found out that I didn't need the drivers, because I could get the hardware to work with FreeBSD, so even that problem went away. And, these drivers are really weird, off-spec ones, ok?
The POINT is, you're being silly, and making up problems where none exist. I know it's fun to play devils advocate, but really -- you're wrong. Your objections are specious.
Ok; I take your point about the multitude of formats available. However, that's a separate issue from the issue I was discussing, which was a much simpler one: building hardware that can read old disks. What you DO with the files you've read is a software issue, not a hardware issue. My point about backwards compatability was very focused: a new player should be able to read binary files from old disks. That was all. This lets you handle the codec issue in software.
If I had a company and I wanted to archive data, I'd be using flat text, of course. So there would be no codec issue. But, then, I'm a programmer... I'd be more likely to shift mediums every ten years or so anyway (NOT accepting your point, just mentioning the obvious). STILL, all I'm talking about is a hardware issue. I'm not touching the codecs and etc, which is a software issue that can be handled with freeware stored on the web. It's not like software has an expiration date after all...
Well, I don't know why people haven't bought into the mini-disks heavily, but they don't seem to sell very well. I'm guessing they're just not enough of a value added for people to pick them up, considering most PCs come with some kind of CD-writer these days... I think that most people say, "well, I've already GOT a cd-writer, so why bother?".
As far as your point about alternate media goes, as I've said, there's nothing stopping you from building other devices. I keep saying this, but I'll try again: you can have more than one storage media on the market. All I'm proposing is the preservation of at least one medium which is backwards compatible, to preserve continuity over time. I don't know why you're being such a hard case about this.
And, about the additional complexity, well, so what? How much do you think plastic optical disks are going to change? They're already pretty state-of-the-art. Capacity might improve, but beyond that, I doubt they're going to change that much.
If you're a programmer, how much SQL do you need, anyway? You have to know inserts, selects, updates, deletes, and transactions, right? Maybe subqueries, but that's more of an art than anything else...
Stored procedures used to be challenging, but (at least where I work) the DBAs are leaning towards cutting those out because they don't want to do the maintenance.
Aside from a pocket-book (it's a novel-sized SQL 92 reference), I don't keep too much SQL documentation around. Most of it is in my head, these days...
I liked their javascript and XML quickstart guides; they're basically ways of getting up to speed on something really quickly, and for relatively simple subjects (like Javascript, html, and xml) they might be all you need outside of web searches. The xml book had some really nice info about stylesheets and XSLT, for instance, and I use the stylesheet reference even when I'm just doing some HTML.
The books are cheap (twenty or thirty bucks) and small (easy to carry in a backpack). I think they're a really good value. Although, I wouldn't buy one for a more in-depth programming language, for the simpler stuff (html, xml) they're great.
5 1/4"??? What are you talking about? They're only like, 2 1/2 inches wide. They're right around the size of a floppy, only with a mini-cd inside. We're not talking about the same product here.
And, no, why would I want to fix a single format and have only one? Don't be silly, you silly, silly boy (ha! Tek ZAT, you silly English knnnnnigggets!). Anyway, you DON'T understand what I'm saying, so I'll lay it out again.
Build a device that today, can burn current-type DVD's for backups, storing data, whatever. Make sure it also reads CDs.
Five years from now, build another device which can use a much higher-capacity optical medium. But, make sure it can still read the old DVDs and CDs.
Years later, build yet another device which can use an even higher-capacity optical medium. But, make it backwards compatible for the previous formats.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat, forever. The capacity just keeps growing and growing, right up to the physical limitations of the medium, but you preserve backwards compatability and the form factor so you can still read your old data.
Perhaps YOU are being unimaginative when you fail to see that my wanting a standardized DVD format for saving archives doesn't stop you from having any number of other formats, yes, including your "floppy disk like enclosure" -- which, incidentally, has been around for years and never caught on in the market. You can get them in Comp USA if you want, but they're more expensive than CDs or DVD-Rs. Go check 'em out if you don't believe me.
Again, I'm not being unimaginative -- YOU are. I fully understand that the simple archival format I described would be only one out of a multitude of different data-storage formats. You, on the other hand, see everything as an either/or situation, one format only. Silly boy.
Ok, I'll try again. Think about it this way: "I'm a company and I've just discovered a set of engineering plans on CD from 2005, for a technology we should have patented but didn't. Now we have to retrieve the design, but there are no more CD players, only emulators, so we're fucked because what are we going to do with all these PHYSICAL CDS"...
The POINT, wise-guy, is that pledging to keep shuffling media isn't going to save you. Not everyone is going to do it, and you're going to end up with loads and loads of unusable media, possibly with priceless and irreplaceable content on it. How is your plan going to help us out of that bind? At least MY idea lets the media continue to be useful indefinitely. Yeah, I think I like MY idea better than yours. Nice try though.
DVDs are superior to VHS for so many reasons... I could make the case that the technology for watching movies is very close to mature -- what else could you add to a DVD? Whole-dialog text search? Interactivity? In terms of watching a movie, a DVD is already pretty close to perfect. You can browse scenes, fast forward, rewind, pause and get a perfect freeze frame... So, in my view, a DVD is just about as good as it gets, movie wise. You can't make that argument about VHS. And, I can't think of anything else they can add to a DVD that would improve it. Maybe they could make it smaller, but why bother?
I think that you would have to store your technical drawings as a sort of carving, maybe etched in carbon-fiber plate, ceramic, glass or crystal (less affected by corrosion or heat than metal, harder, less ductile). It might not be a bad idea to include one of the "rosetta stone" projects as well, so a future race could translate your work. This is kind of a cool idea, maybe something the patent and trade office could start doing (it's not like they're any good at evaluating patents, ha ha).
"in a dump in Singapore". Now, THAT is amazing. I wonder how they got the lead? I bet they called a company there that used to do video editing and asked them what they did with the machine... That's really cool.
Yes, but wouldn't it be nice if a class of device was conceived that preserved backwards compatability for those companies that found (surprise!) that a whole bunch of data from, say, 2005, was stored on DVD-R? Then, it might be 2030, but they'll still be able to read their data. Sometimes, old data gets "discovered" and really does need to be opened up.
You only need one standard, and a few companies building to it, to have this work.
All that is true. However, what I am proposing is a NEW standard, for NEW hardware requiring hardware conforming to the standard to accept legacy CDs and DVDs. All hardware built to the new standard would be compatible with all other hardware built to the standard. See where I'm going with this?
Anyway, DVD doesn't HAVE To be a crap medium. It's got plenty of capacity, all it needs is a little organization.
BY THE WAY: don't tell me fairy stories about static ram and such. They aren't going to replace nonvolatile storage like a CD anytime soon. A CD can be dropped, thrown, soaked in water, subjected to X Rays and electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields... It's practically idiotproof, an excellent all-around archival medium. Novolatile RAM on the other hand can be screwed up in a whole variety of ways; it's fragile. One little power surge and it's toast. Get it too close to your stereo speakers and you corrupt it. Send it through the X-Ray machine at an airport and you take your chances. Will it be used widely? Sure. But it's NOT an archival medium.
OH, and an explanation: I didn't mean "require everyone by law to keep archives". I meant, "IF you build a device conforming to standard X, you are required to maintain backwards compatability". That's as far as it goes; to be compliant with the standard, you have to be backwards compatible. Don't interperet me so anal-retentively.
Finally, don't start bringing SCO into this. It's like putting a turd in the punchbowl. Let's keep things friendly, ok?
Hang on. I didn't mean the law would require that everyone archive using a specific standard. I also didn't mean that the law would require everyone to archive. What I meant, specifically, was that all devices manufactured in accordance with my theoretical standard would be required by law to preserve backwards compatability. So, if company A decided to manufacture and sell devices conforming to my standard, they would be required to make those devices backwards compatible. If they decided to use some other standard, fine, more power to 'em. But, if they were going to use THIS standard, backwards compatibility would be part of it. And, you could offer incentives to companies to use the standard.
Where the law comes in more heavily is, say, in government archives, which can require the use of a specific standard. See what I'm getting at? SO, if company A wants to sell a DVD burner to the library of congress, it MUST be backwards compatible.
Exactly. My thinking is, let's say that over time our ability to store data on a plastic disk gets better and better. 10GB, 20GB, 50GB. We start approaching the physical limitations, i.e. the wavelengths of the light we're using to scan the disk. Ultimately, there will be a limit to how much you can cram on a disk. That limit might be HUGE, but still.
However, during this expansion period, the hardware is getting more and more precise. There's nothing stopping you from writing in a compatability mode which will let you read the old CDs, as long as the tray is built to permit the old CDs being inserted. It's like a ruler; let's say the old ruler had inch and half inch marks. You get a new ruler; it has marks down to 1/32 of an inch. You can still measure inches and half inches with the new ruler! Just as you'll still be able to read old CD tracks with a more precise set of optics.
Politburo thinks this is demanding; I don't think it is. I think it's just good sense. Like you mentioned, consumers will want to buy a super-CD that'll do CDs, DVDs, and the newer formats too. They would be a lot less inclined to buy something that obsoletes all their existing data!
Besides, why waste all that CD manufacturing gear? Keep stamping the same-sized disks, burn 'em with different lasers. It's cheaper.
Because even though for day-to-day use we'll be able to use the fast, futuristic tech, our DVD archives will be able to be used forever as needed. I'm not saying ONLY use DVD; I'm saying maintain an archival standard for long-term archives and keep manufacturing compatible equipment.
Re:Preserve the Hardware as Well?
on
Software Archaeology
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
There was a great Cowboy Bebop episode in which they received an old Beta tape (keep in mind this was set in the 2070's). They found one beta player in a market, but they managed to demolish it. Then they hunted another down by descending hundreds of meters underground to a defunct "museum of technology" to snatch one of the Beta players there, but not knowing the difference between Beta and VHS, they stole the wrong one. Finally, a beta player was shipped to them in the same way as the tape and they were able to view the tape (a little too "deus ex machina" for my tastes, but still).
It was fictional, and very tongue in cheek, but it made an interesting point. How the hell will you play your archived media if you don't have a player? And, not just a player, but support equipment as well -- a display that can connect to the player, a power supply that is the right voltage, amperage, and number of cycles, compatible cabling, etc. It could turn out to be quite a trick to get all the requirements together, just to do something as simple as play an old tape.
Perhaps what's needed is to define a single "data archival standard", and by law require that it be backwards compatible with version 1 of the standard, forever. Then, convert all current data to the version 1 standard, once and for all. We have a good candidate right now: DVD-RW and CD-RW. Preserve those standards, so that all future disk players can at a minimum play current-day CD's and DVD's, and we might be ok. Of course, you'd have to use archival-quality CD's and DVDs, because the cheap ones only last five years (the good ones last a hundred or more, they've got extra coatings to prevent degradation, etc).
Why not? Current DVD players already accept CDs. Just take the current DVD writer as a standard and design all new devices to be backwards compatible (on physical size, too -- i.e. a current, standard-size CD should be usable).
Slashdot Mirror
I'm going to sign off here, because I'm getting pretty fed up with your insulting "you're just out of college" bullshit and I no longer give a fuck what you think. Not that you deserve to know, but I'm in my thirties and I've been a professional programmer for many years. I work with a lot of old and off-spec hardware and data, both at home and in my professional capacity. And, I'm fairly sure you're just carrying this argument on to be an assole, not because you actually have any real problem with what I'm saying. It's a typical Slashdot pissing match between a working stiff (me) and a dried-up, pointy headed, effete intellectual snob (you).
Beat it, son, you bother me.
I explained very carefully that the standard I envisioned would REQUIRE backwards compatability. So if you wanted to claim that your hardware was compliant with the standard, you would have to be backwards compatible. This is how standards work.
Offer incentives to companies to follow the standard, and once the standard starts to be accepted, market pressures maintain it.
As far as point number 1 goes, I think you're reaching -- it's a flaky argument. It isn't as though we're going to suddenly forget how to code for ISO 9660 (or any other format now that everything has trickled down to PCs and zillions of people have access). In fact, now that almost everything is digital, and distributed over the web, it's unlikely *anything* will ever be forgotten *again*. Think I'm full of it? Trust me, if you can think of it, someone out there has it, knows how it works, and has probably done a writeup of it. Think I'm kidding? As a hobby, I rebuild old military-spec laptops and use them as my home development kits (FreeBSD, C++, etc). When I was initially tinkering with them, I found out that there were no drivers available for the CardBus sockets the laptop had on board (or for a few other things). Within a couple of days, I found a guy who had drivers I could download, which enabled me to connect an external CD-Rom to the machine and do some work with it. I later found out that I didn't need the drivers, because I could get the hardware to work with FreeBSD, so even that problem went away. And, these drivers are really weird, off-spec ones, ok?
The POINT is, you're being silly, and making up problems where none exist. I know it's fun to play devils advocate, but really -- you're wrong. Your objections are specious.
Ok; I take your point about the multitude of formats available. However, that's a separate issue from the issue I was discussing, which was a much simpler one: building hardware that can read old disks. What you DO with the files you've read is a software issue, not a hardware issue. My point about backwards compatability was very focused: a new player should be able to read binary files from old disks. That was all. This lets you handle the codec issue in software.
If I had a company and I wanted to archive data, I'd be using flat text, of course. So there would be no codec issue. But, then, I'm a programmer... I'd be more likely to shift mediums every ten years or so anyway (NOT accepting your point, just mentioning the obvious). STILL, all I'm talking about is a hardware issue. I'm not touching the codecs and etc, which is a software issue that can be handled with freeware stored on the web. It's not like software has an expiration date after all...
Well, I don't know why people haven't bought into the mini-disks heavily, but they don't seem to sell very well. I'm guessing they're just not enough of a value added for people to pick them up, considering most PCs come with some kind of CD-writer these days... I think that most people say, "well, I've already GOT a cd-writer, so why bother?".
As far as your point about alternate media goes, as I've said, there's nothing stopping you from building other devices. I keep saying this, but I'll try again: you can have more than one storage media on the market. All I'm proposing is the preservation of at least one medium which is backwards compatible, to preserve continuity over time. I don't know why you're being such a hard case about this.
And, about the additional complexity, well, so what? How much do you think plastic optical disks are going to change? They're already pretty state-of-the-art. Capacity might improve, but beyond that, I doubt they're going to change that much.
Yeah -- codenotes are cool. I've got the XML one at home. They make a nice Java one, too. Awesome set of books...
I know what you're saying... Most of us programmers said the same things. Ah, well, what can you do? Go along to get along, etc.
Yeesh! In your free time, do you do extreme sports, by any chance?
Good heavens...
:)
I just thanked God for my quiet little app development job, where the longest SQL query I've written has been about ten lines...
Then, I thanked him again, and again, and again...
If you're a programmer, how much SQL do you need, anyway? You have to know inserts, selects, updates, deletes, and transactions, right? Maybe subqueries, but that's more of an art than anything else...
Stored procedures used to be challenging, but (at least where I work) the DBAs are leaning towards cutting those out because they don't want to do the maintenance.
Aside from a pocket-book (it's a novel-sized SQL 92 reference), I don't keep too much SQL documentation around. Most of it is in my head, these days...
I liked their javascript and XML quickstart guides; they're basically ways of getting up to speed on something really quickly, and for relatively simple subjects (like Javascript, html, and xml) they might be all you need outside of web searches. The xml book had some really nice info about stylesheets and XSLT, for instance, and I use the stylesheet reference even when I'm just doing some HTML.
The books are cheap (twenty or thirty bucks) and small (easy to carry in a backpack). I think they're a really good value. Although, I wouldn't buy one for a more in-depth programming language, for the simpler stuff (html, xml) they're great.
5 1/4"??? What are you talking about? They're only like, 2 1/2 inches wide. They're right around the size of a floppy, only with a mini-cd inside. We're not talking about the same product here.
And, no, why would I want to fix a single format and have only one? Don't be silly, you silly, silly boy (ha! Tek ZAT, you silly English knnnnnigggets!). Anyway, you DON'T understand what I'm saying, so I'll lay it out again.
Build a device that today, can burn current-type DVD's for backups, storing data, whatever. Make sure it also reads CDs.
Five years from now, build another device which can use a much higher-capacity optical medium. But, make sure it can still read the old DVDs and CDs.
Years later, build yet another device which can use an even higher-capacity optical medium. But, make it backwards compatible for the previous formats.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat, forever. The capacity just keeps growing and growing, right up to the physical limitations of the medium, but you preserve backwards compatability and the form factor so you can still read your old data.
There's nothing more practical than that.
Nyah, nyah. You're it. Tag.
Perhaps YOU are being unimaginative when you fail to see that my wanting a standardized DVD format for saving archives doesn't stop you from having any number of other formats, yes, including your "floppy disk like enclosure" -- which, incidentally, has been around for years and never caught on in the market. You can get them in Comp USA if you want, but they're more expensive than CDs or DVD-Rs. Go check 'em out if you don't believe me.
Again, I'm not being unimaginative -- YOU are. I fully understand that the simple archival format I described would be only one out of a multitude of different data-storage formats. You, on the other hand, see everything as an either/or situation, one format only. Silly boy.
Short-sighted my butt.
Ok, I'll try again. Think about it this way: "I'm a company and I've just discovered a set of engineering plans on CD from 2005, for a technology we should have patented but didn't. Now we have to retrieve the design, but there are no more CD players, only emulators, so we're fucked because what are we going to do with all these PHYSICAL CDS"...
The POINT, wise-guy, is that pledging to keep shuffling media isn't going to save you. Not everyone is going to do it, and you're going to end up with loads and loads of unusable media, possibly with priceless and irreplaceable content on it. How is your plan going to help us out of that bind? At least MY idea lets the media continue to be useful indefinitely. Yeah, I think I like MY idea better than yours. Nice try though.
Nice non sequitur.
DVDs are superior to VHS for so many reasons... I could make the case that the technology for watching movies is very close to mature -- what else could you add to a DVD? Whole-dialog text search? Interactivity? In terms of watching a movie, a DVD is already pretty close to perfect. You can browse scenes, fast forward, rewind, pause and get a perfect freeze frame... So, in my view, a DVD is just about as good as it gets, movie wise. You can't make that argument about VHS. And, I can't think of anything else they can add to a DVD that would improve it. Maybe they could make it smaller, but why bother?
Your implied counterexample has failed.
I think that you would have to store your technical drawings as a sort of carving, maybe etched in carbon-fiber plate, ceramic, glass or crystal (less affected by corrosion or heat than metal, harder, less ductile). It might not be a bad idea to include one of the "rosetta stone" projects as well, so a future race could translate your work. This is kind of a cool idea, maybe something the patent and trade office could start doing (it's not like they're any good at evaluating patents, ha ha).
"in a dump in Singapore". Now, THAT is amazing. I wonder how they got the lead? I bet they called a company there that used to do video editing and asked them what they did with the machine... That's really cool.
Ah. And, what happens when you want to "restore from backup"? Use a microscope and a word processor? Thanks, I'll pass.
Kinda cool link, though. Great project; I might make a donation and get one of these things. Interesting...
You, sir, are a ninny.
Yes, but wouldn't it be nice if a class of device was conceived that preserved backwards compatability for those companies that found (surprise!) that a whole bunch of data from, say, 2005, was stored on DVD-R? Then, it might be 2030, but they'll still be able to read their data. Sometimes, old data gets "discovered" and really does need to be opened up.
You only need one standard, and a few companies building to it, to have this work.
All that is true. However, what I am proposing is a NEW standard, for NEW hardware requiring hardware conforming to the standard to accept legacy CDs and DVDs. All hardware built to the new standard would be compatible with all other hardware built to the standard. See where I'm going with this?
Anyway, DVD doesn't HAVE To be a crap medium. It's got plenty of capacity, all it needs is a little organization.
BY THE WAY: don't tell me fairy stories about static ram and such. They aren't going to replace nonvolatile storage like a CD anytime soon. A CD can be dropped, thrown, soaked in water, subjected to X Rays and electromagnetic radiation, magnetic fields... It's practically idiotproof, an excellent all-around archival medium. Novolatile RAM on the other hand can be screwed up in a whole variety of ways; it's fragile. One little power surge and it's toast. Get it too close to your stereo speakers and you corrupt it. Send it through the X-Ray machine at an airport and you take your chances. Will it be used widely? Sure. But it's NOT an archival medium.
OH, and an explanation: I didn't mean "require everyone by law to keep archives". I meant, "IF you build a device conforming to standard X, you are required to maintain backwards compatability". That's as far as it goes; to be compliant with the standard, you have to be backwards compatible. Don't interperet me so anal-retentively.
Finally, don't start bringing SCO into this. It's like putting a turd in the punchbowl. Let's keep things friendly, ok?
Hang on. I didn't mean the law would require that everyone archive using a specific standard. I also didn't mean that the law would require everyone to archive. What I meant, specifically, was that all devices manufactured in accordance with my theoretical standard would be required by law to preserve backwards compatability. So, if company A decided to manufacture and sell devices conforming to my standard, they would be required to make those devices backwards compatible. If they decided to use some other standard, fine, more power to 'em. But, if they were going to use THIS standard, backwards compatibility would be part of it. And, you could offer incentives to companies to use the standard.
Where the law comes in more heavily is, say, in government archives, which can require the use of a specific standard. See what I'm getting at? SO, if company A wants to sell a DVD burner to the library of congress, it MUST be backwards compatible.
Exactly. My thinking is, let's say that over time our ability to store data on a plastic disk gets better and better. 10GB, 20GB, 50GB. We start approaching the physical limitations, i.e. the wavelengths of the light we're using to scan the disk. Ultimately, there will be a limit to how much you can cram on a disk. That limit might be HUGE, but still.
However, during this expansion period, the hardware is getting more and more precise. There's nothing stopping you from writing in a compatability mode which will let you read the old CDs, as long as the tray is built to permit the old CDs being inserted. It's like a ruler; let's say the old ruler had inch and half inch marks. You get a new ruler; it has marks down to 1/32 of an inch. You can still measure inches and half inches with the new ruler! Just as you'll still be able to read old CD tracks with a more precise set of optics.
Politburo thinks this is demanding; I don't think it is. I think it's just good sense. Like you mentioned, consumers will want to buy a super-CD that'll do CDs, DVDs, and the newer formats too. They would be a lot less inclined to buy something that obsoletes all their existing data!
Besides, why waste all that CD manufacturing gear? Keep stamping the same-sized disks, burn 'em with different lasers. It's cheaper.
Wow... You must have a HUGE ebay account! ;)
Because even though for day-to-day use we'll be able to use the fast, futuristic tech, our DVD archives will be able to be used forever as needed. I'm not saying ONLY use DVD; I'm saying maintain an archival standard for long-term archives and keep manufacturing compatible equipment.
There was a great Cowboy Bebop episode in which they received an old Beta tape (keep in mind this was set in the 2070's). They found one beta player in a market, but they managed to demolish it. Then they hunted another down by descending hundreds of meters underground to a defunct "museum of technology" to snatch one of the Beta players there, but not knowing the difference between Beta and VHS, they stole the wrong one. Finally, a beta player was shipped to them in the same way as the tape and they were able to view the tape (a little too "deus ex machina" for my tastes, but still).
It was fictional, and very tongue in cheek, but it made an interesting point. How the hell will you play your archived media if you don't have a player? And, not just a player, but support equipment as well -- a display that can connect to the player, a power supply that is the right voltage, amperage, and number of cycles, compatible cabling, etc. It could turn out to be quite a trick to get all the requirements together, just to do something as simple as play an old tape.
Perhaps what's needed is to define a single "data archival standard", and by law require that it be backwards compatible with version 1 of the standard, forever. Then, convert all current data to the version 1 standard, once and for all. We have a good candidate right now: DVD-RW and CD-RW. Preserve those standards, so that all future disk players can at a minimum play current-day CD's and DVD's, and we might be ok. Of course, you'd have to use archival-quality CD's and DVDs, because the cheap ones only last five years (the good ones last a hundred or more, they've got extra coatings to prevent degradation, etc).
Why not? Current DVD players already accept CDs. Just take the current DVD writer as a standard and design all new devices to be backwards compatible (on physical size, too -- i.e. a current, standard-size CD should be usable).