CNN interview: Physical books gone in 5 years

[eGeezer]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

My TV works well for that. All I need to do, since it's patched into my computer, is run a slideshow when I'm not watching a show, a movie, or reading a book. So it's not on the coffee table; think outside the box.

Technically speaking, you are thinking outside the book and inside a different box.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by eGeezer

Technically speaking, you are thinking outside the book and inside a different box.

Ohhh...kaaaaay...

[GreenMonkey]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

Well, mostly it's a good argument for backups and standardized formats. I can open an HTML document from 10 years ago, and a TXT file from 20 years ago. Acting like digital files will ultimately fail, so why back them up, is a lot like assuming paper books will rot, so you leave them out in the rain. Properly stored digital files can last as long as paper, if not longer, if you store them properly.

Text files lack italics and a lot of other important stuff. They are VERY basic.

This discussion reminds me of a recent experience. My dad is an amateur writer of sorts. I was trying to pull some files from his old computer - it used to be my grandpa's - an old Packard Bell Pentium 75mhz computer.

First I tried hooking up the drive using the cabling in a USB enclosure (can't get the drive out of the system easily). It is IDE 200mb HDD but with no master/slave jumper - I couldn't get anything to pick up the drive properly. I ended up shuffling files via floppy disks (luckily we found some around, because no one sells them any more). I had to wire up another floppy drive because the one in the box is dead - luckily I had one circa ~2000 that still works (given I bend the pins a little).

The files are probably StarOffice files (after much googling). They are .doc extension. Originally they came off of a Tandy computer ~1990s.

At first glance, Word opened them OK, with a conversion of sorts. But scrolling 7-8 pages in, the doc kinda self-destructs and goes to funky random characters. They open fine under Windows 3.1 / Wordpad / Wordperfect 6.0 for Windows on the 75mhz PC.

I tried special StarOffice converters. They won't install under win7. I installed manually (more googling). Converters don't recognize the files (don't know if they are really StarOffice or not) and require some trickery to work under anything newer than Office 98. I tried OpenOffice. No luck. Finally, I had luck getting them to open with a little effort under Wordperfect for Windows - it seems to the be only program that still has the legacy conversion code loitering around.

All of this for some .doc files.

Now imagine how this kind of thing is going to happen over the coming decades. Programs from the 16-bit era already won't run most of the time without emulation (thus, DOSbox...so some solutions come about).

In another 10-20 years, those kinds of digital files probably won't be useful. You may have the files themselves. But finding something to read the media, to properly open the files, etc...is going to become more and more difficult.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by GreenMonkey

Text files lack italics and a lot of other important stuff. They are VERY basic.

This discussion reminds me of a recent experience. My dad is an amateur writer of sorts. I was trying to pull some files from his old computer - it used to be my grandpa's - an old Packard Bell Pentium 75mhz computer.

First I tried hooking up the drive using the cabling in a USB enclosure (can't get the drive out of the system easily). It is IDE 200mb HDD but with no master/slave jumper - I couldn't get anything to pick up the drive properly. I ended up shuffling files via floppy disks (luckily we found some around, because no one sells them any more). I had to wire up another floppy drive because the one in the box is dead - luckily I had one circa ~2000 that still works (given I bend the pins a little).

The files are probably StarOffice files (after much googling). They are .doc extension. Originally they came off of a Tandy computer ~1990s.

At first glance, Word opened them OK, with a conversion of sorts. But scrolling 7-8 pages in, the doc kinda self-destructs and goes to funky random characters. They open fine under Windows 3.1 / Wordpad / Wordperfect 6.0 for Windows on the 75mhz PC.

I tried special StarOffice converters. They won't install under win7. I installed manually (more googling). Converters don't recognize the files (don't know if they are really StarOffice or not) and require some trickery to work under anything newer than Office 98. I tried OpenOffice. No luck. Finally, I had luck getting them to open with a little effort under Wordperfect for Windows - it seems to the be only program that still has the legacy conversion code loitering around.

All of this for some .doc files.

Now imagine how this kind of thing is going to happen over the coming decades. Programs from the 16-bit era already won't run most of the time without emulation (thus, DOSbox...so some solutions come about).

In another 10-20 years, those kinds of digital files probably won't be useful. You may have the files themselves. But finding something to read the media, to properly open the files, etc...is going to become more and more difficult.

Again, another example why files can't be stored and forgotten. Before file formats and/or storage media become completely obsolete, they should be converted to later formats and/or storage media. Doing so may seem to be a lot of work at the time of the conversion (and, in the case of huge, corporate data repositories, expensive) but failing to do so will result in scenarios such as this.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I keep expecting that, sooner or later, someone will finally anticipate these problems and create batch conversion tools that laymen can use, to convert all of their documents from old format A to new format B in a few minutes/hours, automatically. Frankly it amazes me that there are no easily-obtained and easily-used apps like this out there (I expect there are some out there, but used mainly by professionals and in obscure format corners).

Simple solution to a bad problem. Where are the smart people at?

Of course, we've had offsite backup systems for years, and still, very few use them. So maybe logic isn't the answer here...

[MovieBird]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

If one has a broadband connection, reliable online back up services with unlimited capacity can had for $5 a month or less.

Where is this unlimited service? I'd really rather not rely on RAID for my data, but the largest online backup I've seen from commercial vendors is 100GB.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by MovieBird

Where is this unlimited service? I'd really rather not rely on RAID for my data, but the largest online backup I've seen from commercial vendors is 100GB.

Carbonite

Mozy

I use Carbonite myself.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I keep expecting that, sooner or later, someone will finally anticipate these problems and create batch conversion tools that laymen can use, to convert all of their documents from old format A to new format B in a few minutes/hours, automatically. Frankly it amazes me that there are no easily-obtained and easily-used apps like this out there (I expect there are some out there, but used mainly by professionals and in obscure format corners).

Simple solution to a bad problem. Where are the smart people at?

Of course, we've had offsite backup systems for years, and still, very few use them. So maybe logic isn't the answer here...

There were/are in certain realms. I know I've been through many many word processor applications and they generally have the ability (sometimes limited) to import and convert other formats.

That is sometimes an issue but sometimes it is a physical media issue also...8 inch floppies, 5-1/5 various Hard Drive interfaces - Jazz drives IOMEGA etc.

Now different optical media types and drives etc...

The ability to move/backup to new media are generally there, but it is up to the user to do it.

DRM however presents a different sort of problem than any of the above.

[MrPLD]

All the existing/old document formats that don't migrate well (ignoring physical transfer) have a common issue, they're binary formats which makes them quite a lot harder to write decent decoders for (on future software) and they're typically very brittle (one bad bit and usually the decoder will run off the rails crashing into the bit-bin).

Plain-text formats with tags/formatting on the other hand can be migrated with a lot of ease, at worst you can still strip out the raw text or write your own decoded based on a few assumptions. Things like LaTeX, RTF, HTML/XML, TXT etc can stand the test of time because the format is inherently readable (Even Postscript is to a fairly reasonable degree, depends on how your brain is wired ).

We've (computer scientists and programmers) know this for a long time but during the earlier computing eras with limited space we started cramming everything into bit-fields with some incredibly masterful (but insane) formats, there was also the market-security-via-obscurity aspect too (hence formats like ms-doc).

I'm glad to see that the latest developments of document have come back to being easy to parse, fault tolerant formats.

... video and audio files on the other hand are just scary ... but at least they're well documented

[MovieBird]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Carbonite

Mozy

I use Carbonite myself.

Neither support Linux, which is a no-go for me.

[mgmueller]

Originally Posted by paaThaka

Negroponte hasn't been in the news for a while, so he had to (again) cook up something a little bit outlandish

Maybe mostly gone in 50years.

Somebody should send Negroponte a recent release vinyl or a cd - just as a reminder that things have a tendency to stick around for longer than home-grown futurists imagine.

Exactly.
Why do cinemas still exist, even after the era of TV, VHS, DVDs and now Blue-Rays?
And why do people still buy DVDs or Blue-Rays, although downloading would be so much easier?
Lots of my friends, although being quite tech savvy in other areas, refuse such downloadable material.
"I want to have my book and my shelf" or "I want to see my DVD collection grow" are the main reasons I hear.
Else eBooks, MP3s and DivX could have taken over 10 years ago...

[nyrath]

Originally Posted by Lady Fitzgerald

Again, another example why files can't be stored and forgotten. Before file formats and/or storage media become completely obsolete, they should be converted to later formats and/or storage media. Doing so may seem to be a lot of work at the time of the conversion (and, in the case of huge, corporate data repositories, expensive) but failing to do so will result in scenarios such as this.

But this is why such a solution it impractical for the Library of Congress.
Their inventory is huge, and grows daily. They could not convert their inventory over to a new format before that format itself became obsolete. The conversion process would just keep getting further and further behind.

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by nyrath

The problem is that e-books can become unreadable due to the mere passage of time.

http://hnn.us/roundup/entries/26409.html



Not to mention problems with media. I've got a bunch of data on 3.5 inch floppy disks, but nowadays I do not have easy access to a 3.5 floppy disk drive. And that was only about 15 years worth of obsolescence.

I have .pdf books that I got in 1998. They are fine.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by mgmueller

Exactly.
Why do cinemas still exist, even after the era of TV, VHS, DVDs and now Blue-Rays?
And why do people still buy DVDs or Blue-Rays, although downloading would be so much easier?
Lots of my friends, although being quite tech savvy in other areas, refuse such downloadable material.
"I want to have my book and my shelf" or "I want to see my DVD collection grow" are the main reasons I hear.
Else eBooks, MP3s and DivX could have taken over 10 years ago...

The cinemas are hurting. One chain in the USA (or at least in my neck of the woods), AMC, still has regular rates on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but has started charging the early matinee rates all day long the rest of the week in an effort to get people to come in. They have instituted other cost saving measures. It hasn't affected how often I go, just when I go. I like seeing movies on the big screen without the distractions I get when watching at home.

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Originally Posted by nyrath

But this is why such a solution it impractical for the Library of Congress.
Their inventory is huge, and grows daily. They could not convert their inventory over to a new format before that format itself became obsolete. The conversion process would just keep getting further and further behind.

Are you sure they don't? Keep in mind we are discussing electronic media here.