Subject: RE: VCFe Munich report

From: "Hills, Paul" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri May 16 11:04:04 2003

Although the storage medium transferred to may have a shorter life, the
information itself may have a longer life. As the previous poster said, he
can store all his old 8-bit stuff in a tiny corner of his hard disk. That
can get stored to CD. Now write-able DVD has arrived, it can be copied to an
even smaller corner of a DVD. When the next, even more dense, medium
arrives, it may be copied to an increasingly smaller corner of that. As long
as this copying process occurs more often than the life-length of each
medium, there's no problem. Keeping a copy of each intervening storage media
gives you your backups too.

There is a danger of leaving the information on the original only, as
exemplified by the problems with the BBC's (UK) doomsday project
(http://www.si.umich.edu/CAMILEON/domesday/press.html), which fortunately
were solved. Even though it may be theoretically possible to resurrect the
data, it might be very difficult.

paul

-----Original Message-----
From: [email-masked] [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: 12 May 2003 20:53
To: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: VCFe Munich report

> Hans' presentation on storing vintage computer data as XML made me
> realise that the most important thing is to get everything preserved,
> and then work out what to do with it.  I could store everything I've
> ever written on an 8-bit computer in a corner of my existing hard drive
> and not even notice it was there.  I've got to dig out all those KCS
> cassettes, ASR33 printouts and even a few bits of paper tape and get
> them transferred.

I can assure you those paper tapes will still be readable long after your 
hard disk had headcrashed!. Why do people insist on transfering reliable 
storage media onto modern, unreliable stuff? It's the same with 
photographs and cine films -- people transfer them to CDs and DVDs. The 
originals have a much longer life...

-tony

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From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat May 17 09:26:00 2003

> gives you your backups too.

Great theory, but humans have a proven track record of being notoriously
bad at keeping up with their backups.

> data, it might be very difficult.

That's a bad example.  Those folks never thought to look for a thriving
vintage computer community that would be able to provide them with the
parts they needed.

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
International Man of Intrigue and Danger                http://www.vintage.org

 * Old computing resources for business and academia at www.VintageTech.com *

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From: ben franchuk <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat May 17 14:16:00 2003

> vintage computer community that would be able to provide them with the

So where is such a beast? Hopefully in walking distance. :)

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From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat May 17 14:50:00 2003

> So where is such a beast? Hopefully in walking distance. :)

This is it.

Just about anything that is vintage computer can be found here on this
mailing list.

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From: "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat May 17 18:05:00 2003

> Just about anything that is vintage computer can be found here on this

But even here, Morrow's book ("Quotations from Chairman Morrow") or a
xerox, is impossible to find, even though it was a freebie at Comdex 84.

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From: "Jim Kearney" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat May 17 20:09:00 2003

> xerox, is impossible to find, even though it was a freebie at Comdex 84.

I found this in a Michael Swaine column:

"And does anyone remember this one, published, I think, as a promotional
novelty? Quotations from Chairman Morrow, by George Morrow, (Morrow Design
Press, 1984). I still have it here on my shelf, all 60 tiny pages of it.
George Morrow was one of the more entertaining computer company presidents
of the early days, and this take-off on Chairman Mao's Little Red Book has
some genuinely insightful bits."

Does anyone know him well enough to get a scan of it?  I met him once, but
had to make a crack about his "cousin Corbett's" German that appeared to
piss him off...

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From: Vintage Computer Festival <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat May 17 22:29:22 2003

> xerox, is impossible to find, even though it was a freebie at Comdex 84.

Might it have been published in the show guide for that year, or the next?

--

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From: "Fred Cisin (XenoSoft)" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun May 18 14:13:00 2003

> Might it have been published in the show guide for that year, or the next?

Nope.  It was handed out at the Morrow booth.   little red book

The show guide has a paragraph listing for each of the >1000
exhibitors, plus paid ads, plus promotion of the talks.  I have gone
through them in detail for other stuff.  I'm now missing my copy of 
the '84, but I have duplicates of most other years.

Our last hopes were to get one directly from George.  Or maybe if his
estate were contacted by a prestigious vintage computer organization??