Quote:
Originally Posted by Ripplinger
It sounds like you're looking for a foolproof, idiotproof way to just magically preserve present day formats and hardware forever.
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Not really; but I do want to be sure that I don't have to pay again and again and again to keep using information I already have.
Quote:
Originally Posted by taustin
Once again, and I'll speak slowly this time, that's not a file format issue. That's an obsolete media issue. A completely different issue.
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No, it's not a different issue. You need hardware *and* software to use a file format. It doesn't matter which of the two is not available: in both cases, you lose access to your information. When you don't have the hardware, you can't even get to the file, when you don't have the software, you can't open the file.
I've not been running around on this globe for too long, but I've already seen many people lose access to their information because they where either unable to access the media, in case of old floppies (mostly, defective media, or defective drive, in computer that does not work with still available drives), or because of absence of software, in case of original games, that needed specific copy protection drivers installed that only worked on Win98. Pirated versions of those games, without those protections, work fine on Windows 7 if need be.
Yes, often there are solutions, one way or another (change a drive by soldering, create adapters, or in case of old operating systems, use a VM), but just as often, there are none or only very cludgy ones, and I'm not going to just hope that everything will just turn out all right. I've seen too much "shouldn't have been necessary"-stuff happen already.