But why? I thought the idea emanating from the thread was to go the other way
around for long time archival, i.e. computer --> Sumerian (or Babylonian) clay.
Boaz
Boaz Shaanan, Ph.D.
Dept. of Life Sciences
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
Beer-Sheva 84105
Israel
E-mail: bshaa...@bgu.ac.il
Phone: 972-8-647-2220 Skype: boaz.shaanan
Fax: 972-8-647-2992 or 972-8-646-1710
________________________________________
From: CCP4 bulletin board [CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK] on behalf of Richard Gillilan
[r...@cornell.edu]
Sent: Friday, December 14, 2012 5:20 PM
To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK
Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] archival memory?
This is too funny. My wife's new job is scanning Sumerian clay tablets into
computer. I kid you not.
On Dec 12, 2012, at 5:35 PM, Laura Spagnolo wrote:
> I would definitely go for babylonian clay...
>
>
>
> On Dec 12, 2012, at 10:31 PM, Adrian Goldman wrote:
>
>> I say write them out onto acid-free paper: should be good for at least 300
>> years without active management, if there is no fire. If that doesn't work,
>> I believe babylonian clay tablets have an even longer expected life time….
>>
>> Dale, I must say I am impressed… I gave up after the exabyte to DAT
>> transition, and decided that if I really wanted to get data sets from (my)
>> old projects, it would be easier to regrow the crystals…
>>
>> Adrian
>>
>>
>> On 13 Dec 2012, at 00:22, Dale Tronrud wrote:
>>
>>> I don't believe there is a solution that does not involve active
>>> management. You can't write your data and pick up those media 25
>>> years later and expect to get your data back -- not without some
>>> heroic effort involving the construction of your own hardware.
>>>
>>> I have data from Brian Matthews' lab going back to the mid-1970's
>>> and those data started life on 7-track mag tapes. I've moved them
>>> from there to 9-track 1600 bpi tapes, to 9-track 6250 bpi tapes, to
>>> just about every density of Exabyte tape, to DVD, and most recently
>>> to external magnetic hard drives (each with USB, Firewire, and eSATA
>>> interfaces). The hard drives are about five years old and so far
>>> are holding up. Last time I checked I could still read the 10 year
>>> old DVD's. I'm having real trouble reading Exabyte tapes.
>>>
>>> Write your data to some medium that you expect to last for at least
>>> five years but anticipate that you will then have to move them to
>>> something else.
>>>
>>> Instead of spending time working on the 100 year solution you should
>>> spend your time annotating your data so that someone other than you
>>> can figure out what it is. Lack of annotation and editing is the
>>> biggest problem with old data.
>>>
>>> Dale Tronrud
>>>
>>> P.S. If someone needs the intensities for heavy atom derivatives of
>>> Thermolysin written in VENUS format, I'm your man.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On 12/12/2012 1:57 PM, Richard Gillilan wrote:
>>>> Better option? Certainly not TAPE or electromechanical disk drive. CD's
>>>> and DVD's don't last nearly that long and James Holton has pointed out.
>>>>
>>>> I suppose there might be a "cloud" solution where you rely upon data just
>>>> floating around out there in cyberspace with a life of its own.
>>>>
>>>> Richard
>>>>
>>>> On Dec 12, 2012, at 4:41 PM, Dale Tronrud wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Good luck on your search in 100 years for a computer with a
>>>>> USB port. You will also need software that can read a FAT32
>>>>> file system.
>>>>>
>>>>> Dale "Glad I didn't buy a lot of disk drives with Firewire" Tronrud
>>>>>
>>>>> On 12/12/2012 1:02 PM, Richard Gillilan wrote:
>>>>>> SanDisk advertises a "Memory Vault" disk for archival storage of photos
>>>>>> that they claim will last 100 years.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> (note: they do have a scheme for estimating lifetime of the memory,
>>>>>> Arrhenius Equation ... interesting. Check it out:
>>>>>> www.sandisk.com/products/usb/memory-vault/ and click the Chronolock
>>>>>> tab.).
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Has anyone here looked into this or seen similar products?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Richard Gillilan
>>>>>> MacCHESS
>>>>>>
>>
>
> Dr Laura Spagnolo
> Institute of Structural Molecular Biology
> University of Edinburgh
> Room 506, Darwin Building
> King's Buildings Campus
> Edinburgh EH9 3JR
> United Kingdom
> T: +44 (0)131 650 7066
> F: +44 (0)131 650 8650
> http://www.biology.ed.ac.uk/research/institutes/structure/homepage.php?id=lspagnolo
> laura.spagn...@ed.ac.uk
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> The University of Edinburgh is a charitable body, registered in
> Scotland, with registration number SC005336.
