P3D Re: P3D Re: P3D Re: P3D Prints vs slides - Archival Qualities

[michaelk@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Michael Kersenbrock)]

> Digital converstion and storage has it's own foibles... do not expect
> most conventionally available forms of digital storage (including CDs
> and M/Os) to last beyond 10 years!

I have hundreds of audio CD's that I bought over 10 years ago and
they're all been fine and "perfect" whenever I play one.  Write-once
CD's are, however, to be less reliable.  :-(

We've already talked about how the lifetime of the digital data 
can be much longer than the media upon which it is stored by 
making error corrected copies to new media, something not possible
with analog systems.  When I bought a new tape-backup for my
PC, I loaded my old tape-drive tapes onto disk and then re-wrote
the info onto new tapes.  I now have new exact copies of my old archive
data in a newer technology, and because capacity expands as time
goes on (both in disk and tape-backup size) doing so is actually
easy -- a whole pile of old tapes fit on a single new tape with
room to spare.

I recently acquired a box of realist-slides seemingly from 
the 50's.  All in Ansco film.  All look like "red-monochrome" 
pictures.  :-(

Mike K.


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