[GTALUG] War Story: Asus UX305ca SSD failures

[Kevin Cozens]

On 2019-08-02 8:03 a.m., Russell Reiter via talk wrote:
> On Fri, Aug 2, 2019, 7:23 AM Stewart C. Russell via talk <talk at gtalug.org 
> <mailto:talk at gtalug.org>> wrote:
> 
>     On 2019-08-01 11:09 p.m., D. Hugh Redelmeier via talk wrote:
>      >
>      > - punch cards and paper tape: 100 years
>      >
>      > - 9-track mag tape: 10 years
[snip]
>     Good luck getting a reader for any of these now. At least the paper
>     media is scannable.
> 
> 
> Chances are if you have the data on tape, you already have the reader. These 
> folks will repair or replace your equipment.
[snip]
> ????It may seem out of date, but there is still a strong business case for 
> maintaining the original archive records on original format, as well as a 
> copy transferred to newer media, depending on the importance of the dataset 
> itself.??

I have printouts of programs that had been printed on an old IBM 1403 chain 
printer, some programs that are on punch cards, and one on paper tape. I 
also have two mag tapes reels that were used with IBM mainframes. I have no 
idea what is on those tapes. The printouts, punch cards, and paper tape have 
survived intact for over 40 years.

I still (mostly) remember how to read punch cards. I would have to find a 
site to help decode the paper tape but it could be run through an ASR 33 
teletype to generate a printout.

I recently discovered I have a cassette tape with 4K BASIC for Altair 8800 
dated 1976. I have now archived the audio on that cassette that on to my 
computer. I have other cassette tapes I used with old computers that I'm 
doing to digitize and attempt to decode.

It is interesting to realize that a lot of this "old school technology" has 
survived many a decade yet modern devices like CDs, DVDs, and hard drives 
often have much shorter shelf lives.

-- 
Cheers!

Kevin.

http://www.ve3syb.ca/               | "Nerds make the shiny things that
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                                     | that's why we're powerful"
Owner of Elecraft K2 #2172          |
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