Re: Alternative to Optical Storage????

On 10/1/24 11:28 PM, Robert Riches wrote:

On 2024-10-01, 186282@ud0s4.net <186283@ud0s4.net> wrote:

...
    What DOES last ... baked clay tablets. Still
    readable after 8000 years. You can read all
    about the hero Gilgamesh, note the accounting
    of taxes on wheat in Uruk  :-)

 ... and, according to a discussion I read in some newsgroup,
they're goat-proof, unlike Papyrus.  The lengthy discussion
was marvelous!

   It's kind of an important subject now - SO much
   data, important now, important a few years from
   now, some important historically - yet there are
   really NO good media to STORE it on. The best ones
   are also the lowest-density and/or going obsolete.
   So, for now, up-replicate plus "cloud". Note that
   Vlad's boyz MIGHT evaporate that cloud at any
   time alas ....
   The durability of those old baked-clay tablets
   though - extraordinary. They provide a broad
   window into what's likely the very first civ.
   The videotapes of the moon landings - can't be
   found. SOME think they were over-written with
   new stuff by idiots. Me, I think they're in
   a trunk in someone's attic. Thing is, they were
   typical mylar 'tape' with a mag coating which
   WILL start to flake off, esp if the attic is
   in Florida. The plastic isn't forever either.
   Finally, most everything to do with the early
   space program was proprietary - often very
   literally one-off - with no standardized or
   even decently-documented formats. Hell, we've
   never even really SEEN the moon landing because
   there was no way to adapt the proprietary HD
   video to anything the media could use - our view
   was of the news camera pointed at a long-persistence
   B&W console monitor.
   Can WE make the better 'clay tablet' ? A fused
   silica or aluminum oxide disk or page laser-
   pitted somewhere inside (with semi-glyphic
   instructions on each) ??? 10,000 years is a
   worthy goal.