"Forgotten century" of digital material

[TheOstrich]

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2 ... -vint-cerf

Interesting article. I still have loads of 3 1/2" floppy disks around, both used and unused (I do have a plug-in floppy disk drive somewhere, though ...... ). But I wonder how many of the prehistoric bigger-size ones are still out there - 5 1/4" from memory).

[Workingman]

He is being a bit alarmist with his "lost forever" claims.

The hardware and programs to read them will still be there, or could be produced. It is not as though we lack the technological capabilities. We might well have moved on from 8-bit and 16-bit software, but lost forever they are not.

I have a box of tapes and cartridges from the Spectrum/Commodore/Atari/BBC days, as well as floppies of both sizes, all ready to play if I wanted to. I have an old tape deck and floppy drives and I bet that if I looked hard enough I could find emulators to see what is on them.

The danger is not so much on our ability to access these digital medias. it is that many people will simply see them as junk and throw them in the bin. Quite a lot of very interesting information will be lost that way.

Maybe Mr Google could set up a repository where people could donate their old digital media for future generations to be able to see just how far we have come. It could also be the centre where old hardware is maintained in working order.