[H-GEN] CDs vs tapes [was: Assistance Required]

[doug rickard]

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----- Original Message -----
From: Jason Henry Parker <jasonp at uq.net.au>
To: <general at lists.humbug.org.au>
Sent: Saturday, March 30, 2002 7:42 PM
Subject: Re: [H-GEN] CDs vs tapes [was: Assistance Required]



<big snip>

> Paul Gearon can fill in details here, I think, but NASA has a very big
> problem---its media are expiring so quickly that even *if* they had
> readers (apparently some of the relevant designers are now *dead*),
> and even if they started transferring old data right now, they still
> would not be done in time to avoid losing any data to obsolescence.

NASA is currently making the data from some of the early deep S/C available
on CD. I recently helped a friend in Poland to decode the pictures from
Mariner IV launched about 1967 to Mars.

The Surveyor S/C sent to the limits of the solar system still uses the
original DEC PDP-11s to decode the telemetry. They prefer to stay with the
tried and true.

Doug.



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