Re: Future Tech Solutions - Self Extracting Molecular Archives

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Stewart Brand
Wed, 18 Feb 1998 18:03:52 -0800


At 4:09 PM -0800 2/17/98, Steven Swimmer wrote:
>There is much discussion about practical near term solutions such as
>writing really small and using paper to preserve digital information. What
>about upcoming future technologies that may lead to 5000 year
>solutions? If we solve the 500 year storage solution first, might we
>come across a better 5,000 year solution in the future?

Yes, assuming tech keeps advancing at the rate of recent decades (and only
recent decades). Part of the idea of backing up---civilization or anything
else---is stepping outside that assumption of continuity and progress.

In any case the idea is to set in motion a series of storage media which
are invited to know about each other, starting with what we have now.
Design, in other words, for an upgrade path and for backward compatibility.
These are standard ideas in software, but their span so far is only about
ten years. We're encouraging compatibility forward and back which spans
centuries at least, and preferably millennia.