Archival preservation of software

[Chuck Guzis]

On 20 Oct 2007 at 19:52, Al Kossow wrote:

> Unless you recover the data, what you have is a physical artifact of a magnetic
> storage medium. There is absolutely no way to say what, in fact, is even on it
> until you read it. Bits aren't preserved if they exist on only one physical medium,
> which you may not be able to recover in the future.

Exactly.  I'm starting to see a trend with some brands of floppies 
more than 25 years old where the oxide is starting to separate from 
the substrate, leading to fouled heads and "see through" tracks.  
Mostly on Wabash brand floppies currently, although a few off-brands 
such as "Precision" seem to also be showing this behavior.

Time to get 'em archived.

Cheers,
Chuck