T3D Re: stamped CD are forever

["Gregory J. Wageman" <gjw@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Bob Maxey wrote:

>I wonder why longevity is even an issue in the first place. So what if the
>medium only lasts 10, 15, 20 years? It does not matter, simply because
>there is probably no one on this list that will be using the technology of
>today even 20 years from now. I am sure that in the next decade systems
>will change to such a point that we will not be using the system we use
>now.

The long-playing record, whose praises you spoke in an early posting, was
invented around 1947 if memory serves.  LPs are still being manufactured
in 1999, more the 50 years later.

I certainly hope that I do not need to replace or copy my audio CD collection
of well over 1,000 discs every 10, 15 or 20 years!

Backward compatibility is the key here.  With ephemeral storage uses such
as tape backups of computer data, backward compatibility is less of an
issue, since that data becomes "stale" so quickly.  But with long-term
archival uses, such as a music library, it is essential that you be
able to read that data in 100 years.  Sadly, there is not much incentive
for the music industry to see that this is so, since the replacement of
vinyl collections with CDs largely fueled the music industry boom of the
1980's.

With the upcoming release of the first DVD Audio players, and the competing
Super Audio CD (SACD) format from Sony, things are going to get even more
interesting.

And to bring this back to a 3D-related topic, many of us are of course still
happily viewing and using 1890's technology in the stereoview card and the
Holmes-Bates viewer.  There is no reason to assume that a technology that
"gets the job done" will automatically become obsolete in a short time.

	-Greg W. (gjw@xxxxxxxxxx)




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End of TECH-3D Digest 527
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