The Null Device

Dead media: In 1986, the British government commissioned a new digital Domesday Book, as a state-of-the-art time capsule of contemporary Britain. 16 years later, no-one can read it. The New Domesday Book, you see, was stored on 12-inch laser discs, accessible by special custom hardware and software based around the BBC Micro (which was sort of the British national computer in those days, and only used in education and official functions; pity, as it was probably the most sophisticated system based around a 6502, but I digress). This is emblematic of how a lot of data in obsolete formats has been lost, because the means to access it no longer exists.
A crisis in digital preservation now afflicts all developed countries. Databases recorded in old computer formats can no longer be accessed on new generation machines, while magnetic storage tapes and discs have physically decayed, ruining precious databases.

There are 2 comments on "":

Posted by: phil http:// Wed Mar 6 01:03:33 2002

these obsolete forms of data storage should be put to use, either by sending them to artists such as farmers manual, who transform all kinds of data into digital soundscapes. i use the same materials in differing ways, and not quite as well as FM. farmers manual can be contacted at : test@farmersmanual.co.at i can be contacted at : hired_state@excite.com if anyone has access to redundant data i'm sure FM would appreciate access to it, as would i. it would be great to recycle and put to use

Posted by: acb http://dev.null.org Wed Mar 6 06:09:55 2002

Interesting idea. You'd have to make sure that the data doesn't contain anything confidential (banking details, medical records, &c), just in case someone manages to reverse-engineer the transformation.