If you need to archive your caving data for several centuries, check out this:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575005,00.html So let's say you have archived 4 1/2 gigs of caving data. You have stored the DVD ( or DVD's ), and small laptop ( w/o battery and CMOS battery ), and utility cord in a fire-retardant water-proof safe. And provided the future caver with instructions on the operation of the laptop, and a paper summary of the data. You included a back-up external DVD player, just in case. You then sealed the safe with silicon glue and bailing wire, and then wrapped the contraption with and Gorilla duct-tape. Then air-sealed it in a large plastic foodsaver sack, and then put it in a large plastic Pelican suitcase, and hid it in the driest most remote cave passage that you could find, along with a note that this is a time capsule and to "please not disturb," ( in 20 languages ). Then presume 500 years or more pass by. Is there going to anyone from that time period that will have any desire to access that data. Do you really think they would be able to access it? Even if they could access the data, would they be able to transfer it to the device of that time period or use the data for some constructive purpose? Do they make a laptop that does not have a CMOS battery ? Maybe the batteries could be sealed, so that the future caver could try to make a similar replacement. I think the next hurdle is to develop a laptop that doesn't use batteries, and uses a crank and some kind of power saving device not affected by storage. http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5340662/claims.html David
