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Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new)

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On Sat, 22 Aug 2015, hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> On Saturday, August 22, 2015 at 8:14:47 AM UTC-4, Peter Flass wrote:
>
>
>> Think about photos.  Hard drives crash, CDs and DVDs degrade and become
>> unreadable.  A paper photo stored properly will last hundreds of years.
>
> Color photos may not necessarily have good storage, and one won't find 
> out until it's too late.  Some of my very old Agfa slides are still 
> good, but a later version of Agfa all faded away.
>
> Usually, slides and prints processed by Kodak have good stability, but 
> stuff processed by others may not last that long.
>
> As to DVDs and CDs, what scares me is obsolescence of the medium as 
> opposed to decay.  If you have a 5" floppy with important historical 
> data on it, where can you go and _easily_ get it read?  Even a 3.5" 
> floppy?  If you have data created by an old version of Lotus, can a 
> modern program still read it?  (People are telling me after a point old 
> files can't be read.)
>
>
The real problem is the software.

I still have 5.25" drives around, kept just in case.  This computer sitll 
has a 3.5" drive.

But I have floppies going back to 1984, and those are on a non-mainstream 
format.  I either have to resurrect the computer they were made on, or 
write or get software that will read the sectors in in the proper format.

I should have done it a long time ago, but I didn't really have any 
independent means of archiving until relatively recently.  ANd those 
oldest floppies are relatively small, it wsa only once I got a hard drive, 
in 1994, that I could save really large files, and only after I got 
oinline access, in late 1994, that I had much in the way of "large"
files.  The closer I get to now, the larger things get, though ironically 
the less important it is.  If I lost a hard drive, it would nag me about 
what I lost, but chances are good much of it could be recovered, so long 
as I knew what was there.  But most of the file space in more recent times 
is from things from the internet, rather than things I created myself.

   Michael

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Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-08-21 13:44 -0700
  Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-08-22 00:40 +0000
    Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-08-21 20:16 -0700
      Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) "Santo Brown" <sb8743@gmail.com> - 2015-08-22 13:27 +1000
      Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) "Osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2015-08-21 22:40 -0500
        Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2015-08-22 06:58 +0000
          Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-08-22 13:18 -0700
        Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2015-08-27 20:21 -0700
      Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> - 2015-08-21 23:40 -0500
      Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-08-22 08:28 +0000
        Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Huge <Huge@nowhere.much.invalid> - 2015-08-22 09:24 +0000
        Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Joe Makowiec <makowiec@invalid.invalid> - 2015-08-22 11:39 +0000
          Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2015-08-22 17:14 +0000
            Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) "Santo Brown" <sb8743@gmail.com> - 2015-08-23 04:53 +1000
          Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-08-22 13:23 -0700
            Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-08-22 21:13 -0400
        Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-08-22 12:13 +0000
          Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-08-22 10:24 -0400
            Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Morten Reistad <first@last.name> - 2015-08-22 16:54 +0200
            Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-08-22 13:28 -0700
          Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) hancock4@bbs.cpcn.com - 2015-08-22 13:27 -0700
            Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-08-22 22:24 +0000
            Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Dan Espen <despen@verizon.net> - 2015-08-22 21:12 -0400
            Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2015-08-22 23:30 -0400
              Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-08-23 10:47 +0000
                Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2015-08-23 09:45 -0400
                Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2015-08-23 14:55 +0000
                Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2015-08-23 14:24 +0000
                Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2015-08-23 18:21 -0400
                Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Stan Barr <plan.b@bluesomatic.org> - 2015-08-24 06:56 +0000
                Re: Business data processing on the System/3 (the old and the new) Dave Garland <dave.garland@wizinfo.com> - 2015-08-23 10:04 -0500

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