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Re: Towards consensus on document format

2010-03-16 22:06:08
On Tue, Mar 16, 2010 at 07:58:17PM -0700, Bill McQuillan wrote:

I am haunted by the reports I've heard of NASA plaintively requesting
*anybody* to provide them with a 7-track tape machine to allow them to read
old data tapes from the 1960's and 1970's.

Not so much 1000 years as 40 years!

I think that's a somewhat old story.  See:

http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=47354207
http://www.johnbordynuik.com/case-studies/mit
http://www.johnbordynuik.com/case-studies/nasa

Problem solved, with a dose of new technology.  Did it cost extra
money, because some folks didn't plan ahead and didn't convert these
tapes sooner?  Yes.  But it was doable....

(And it had nothing to do with XML or "teleprinter" or Character set
issues....  I can see the headlines now; Internet history lost forever
because historians felt too 'personally insulted' to read 66-line
formatted RFC's.  :-)

                                                - Ted

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