On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 1:30 PM, Bob La Quey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 12:54 PM, Andrew Lentvorski <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Bob La Quey wrote: >>> >>> On Sat, Aug 16, 2008 at 10:03 AM, Gus Wirth <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>>> >>>> Exactly. I need to store entire virtual machines of development >>>> environments, each of which is anywhere from 5-20GB. This isn't going to >>>> work for any kind of upload service. >>>> >>>> >>>> Gus >>> >>> Say one interested in long term storage. How does one save the >>> hardware the virtual machines run on? Say for a few decades? >>> >>> People with serious archives must be addressing these problems but I >>> know nothing of the answer. >> >> It's called "source code". >> >> It's one of the reasons why open source really is the only way to go. >> >> -a > > Basically I agree ... but where does one stop? > > The entire context, compilers, linkers, build environments, data, > metadata, etc. all of the stuff it actually takes to "make" something > ultimately reaches back into the early history of computing. > > I am beginning to think there is only one real problem in computing > that matters. Ir is called configuration management. >
One should look in on "The Computer History Simulation Project" <http://simh.trailing-edge.com/> Their object is to build software simulations of historical computers to run on currently available hardware, at the level that original software (diagnostics, operating systems, etc etc) will run on the simulator. Except usually a lot faster. carl -- carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
