Back to the future
Those of you who, like me, are old enough to remember the invention of the laser disk will also remember how the early TV adverts showed it as "virtually indestructible", seemingly immune to the ravages of both bad handling and baby food. Nowadays we know that isn't really the case.
The early CDs were impressive, but not quite as robust as we imagined. Whilst they were harder to scratch than the old black vinyl, they were not invulnerable, and a deep scratch could leave them totally unusable. It was also discovered that strong sunlight and humidity could also play a part in causing the layers to crack and peel apart. These days, the disks are much tougher.
But are they indestructible? Perhaps they are still not as tough as you imagine. I was surprised to read that a company in the USA, Milleniata, is producing a series of discs priced at $12 each which are designed to withstand the ravages of time. Its motto is "Write once, read forever" but in the small print you find that "forever" is defined as approximately 1000 years. That compares well with other archival disks on the market which record the data on a layer of gold and are rated as having a life span of around 100 to 300 years, whilst the average CD you burn yourself can deteriorate in less than five years, even if kept in a cool, dark place. Those CDs use a layer of dye to record the information and like old photographs they fade with age, so if you have important documents or photos stored on CD, and if that CD is more than a couple of years old, it might be time to burn a new back-up copy.
Our knowledge of the past is often limited by lack of written records. We now live in an information age but future historians may find it hard to piece together an understanding of our times due to the transient nature of the records we store today. Even when files survive into the next millennium, we have to wonder if our future selves will have the right sort of technology to read it, and will they be able to make any sense at all out of the encoded formats we use today. We already have enough trouble trying to read data from word processors of the 1980s. Our 8-track cartridge players, floppy disk drives and VHS video recorders are already obsolete. It is strange to think that our paper records, maps, postcards, books and photographs will probably survive longer and make more of a contribution to history than our digital ephemera.
26th August 2009
This article comes from the SKILLZONE email newsletter, published monthly since January 2008, and covering topics related to technology and the internet. All articles and artwork in the SKILLZONE newsletter are orignal content.