1086 Domesday Book Outlives 1986 Electronic Rival 419
mccalli writes :"Thought people might find this amusing. In 1986, the UK compiled an electronic domesday book. They used BBC Master computers to do it, and the result was put on laserdisc. I actually used this project whilst at school. This article states that nothing can now read these merely 15-year old discs. The original, written approx. 1086, is still doing fine thank you very much." Sounds like a good candidate for Bruce Sterling's Dead Media Project. (Speaking of Sterling, the "graying cyberpunk" has an interesting article in the Austin Chronicle on the upcoming SXSW Interactive conference called "Information Wants to be Worthless" -- thanks to reader ag3n7.) Update: 03/03 19:38 GMT by T : That's "domesday" not "doomsday."
Re:WYSIWYG vs Plain ASCII (Score:0, Funny)
Re:This is exactly what I was talking about.. (Score:3, Funny)
Quite right. I submitted the story, and it looks my typing habits have been corrupted by too many iD games....
Cheers,
Ian
Books can't be Slashdotted! (Score:2, Funny)
From http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk [domesdaybook.co.uk]:
The original book even outlasted the online version! ;)
Re:WYSIWYG vs Plain ASCII (Score:5, Funny)
OT [Re:Aren't laserdiscs analog?] (Score:2, Funny)
But it's the BBC, old boy, they'd be analogue
- Derwen
Re:Doomsday? DOMESDAY (Score:3, Funny)
Isn't that Microsoft's slogan? I smell some trademark infringement here...
Re:WYSIWYG vs Plain ASCII (Score:3, Funny)
"We'll need to find a storage medium that can be decoded by the one engine that will not fade for a long time; The Human Brain.
Can you imagine spell-checking your document only for the computer to stop at a word and bring up a box saying, "Oh I know this one... it's on the tip of my tongue... no, don't tell me..."
Seriously though, as long as the media doesn't deteriorate we can always reverse-engineer to get the data back if it's really important.
Phillip.
Re:What will future people find of us in 10,000 ye (Score:4, Funny)
hehehe
Encrypted computer data will lead us into a new dark age of information if people are stupid and decide to archive books and artwork digitally and destroy the originals. Tablets and oil paintings are more effective to document history.
--Jeff