Seriously thoughtful Is Ink and Paper the Ultimate Archive Document Medium?

[Solitaire1]

I was recently re-reading Legion of Super-Heroes: Millenium, written by Brian Michael Bendis. The first part of the book is the story of Rose Forest (aka Rose & Thorn) who traveled from the 21st Century to the 31st Century the hard way...by living through it (something occurred in the present that made her unaging and apparently immortal). We get to see her live through various eras in DC History.

One of the things that struck me, and the reason for this thread, is that she mentions (paraphrased and summarized from the text):

• She's starting another private journal.
• It's her fourth or fifth attempt.
• She keeps losing them to due advances in technology, with her first journal being stored on a ZIP Drive.
• That this is a very old person's problem.

This got me to wondering how much of our personal documents will still be accessible in the future. For myself, I've got some documents stored on 5.25 inch floppy discs, and others on 3.5 inch floppy discs (with some on disc non-standard formatted for a Brother Word Processor), that I doubt I would be able to access now, with many stored in formats for word processors that are no longer in common use.

Although major works will likely be retained for the foreseeable future via translation from one electronic format to another, I doubt this will be the case with many personal documents. Due to this, I'm thinking that ink and paper might be the only option to retain access to our personal documents regardless of advances in technology.

Consider that technology in use within the last few decades (including, as Rose Forrest mentioned, ZIP Discs) have already been rendered obsolete and its data difficult, if not impossible, to access. However, documents (including personal letters) handwritten/printed in ink on paper are still readable 100s of years later.

This led me to wonder if ink and paper might be the best way to preserve our personal documents. What are your thoughts?

[Sirtel]

Most of my personal documents are in html or pdf. Those formats have been accessible for decades and I trust I'll be able to access them to the end of my life, or convert them to something I can access. As to my paper documents from before I used a computer, I wouldn't be able to find anything, because they're not searchable. And you can lose your papers to various accidents, e.g. fire. Whereas I store my digital documents on several external drives and in Dropbox, and haven't lost anything in 25 years.

[DNSB]

Perhaps engraved on metal sheets? Not to forget that proper storage is as if not more important than what media your words are stored on.

[Sirtel]

Just tried to open some of my older documents from 2002-2006 - html, pdf and doc. All opened and were perfectly readable.

So no, I'm not a fan of paper documents.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by DNSB

Perhaps engraved on metal sheets? Not to forget that proper storage is as if not more important than what media your words are stored on.

Metal can rust. Stone is the only true storage medium.

Edit: seriously, yeah, I check my external drives regularly and have swapped them out more than once. When the time comes they may no longer be accessible, I'll transfer my stuff to something else.

[DNSB]

I just checked one of the oldest reference books I have (2 volumes from 1881). Still reads just as when it was printed though I am fairly certain that no one today is going to use sulphuric acid on their windows to prevent frost from forming. OTOH, if I ever want to make my own photographic plates, I'm all set.

[OtinG]

HTML and PDF exist on some kind of digital storage device. Over time that will become obsolete. Good luck finding a 5-1/4" floppy drive these days and even worse, expecting that old 5-1/4" floppy diskette to still contain uncorrupted data from 40+ years ago! Some photo/video film will survive a long time if stored properly, VHS tapes not so much. Still got some 8-track tapes from the 60s and 70s? Bet those won't play well now, even if you find an old 8-track player!

Cuneiform tablets 4000+ years old still contain the words written at the dawn of literacy, yet vellum (animal skin) scrolls from 1000 years ago might be filled with bug damage, faded ink, and rot. But if the cuneiform tablet gets smashed, well say goodbye to that data. Perhaps 10,000 years from now the only ancient docs having survived will be chiseled in stone, but even those will likely be few in number. Digital storage will change constantly requiring periodic transfer to newer technologies, else it will disappear.

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by OtinG

HTML and PDF exist on some kind of digital storage device. Over time that will become obsolete. Good luck finding a 5-1/4" floppy drive these days and even worse, expecting that old 5-1/4" floppy diskette to still contain uncorrupted data from 40+ years ago! Some photo/video film will survive a long time if stored properly, VHS tapes not so much. Still got some 8-track tapes from the 60s and 70s? Bet those won't play well now, even if you find an old 8-track player!

Cuneiform tablets 4000+ years old still contain the words written at the dawn of literacy, yet vellum (animal skin) scrolls from 1000 years ago might be filled with bug damage, faded ink, and rot. But if the cuneiform tablet gets smashed, well say goodbye to that data. Perhaps 10,000 years from now the only ancient docs having survived will be chiseled in stone, but even those will likely be few in number. Digital storage will change constantly requiring periodic transfer to newer technologies, else it will disappear.

Also, consider that over time upheavals in the world might result in the loss of documents and available technology. In the story I mentioned above one of the events that Rose Forrest lived through was The Great Disaster. It was an event where many humans were reduced to the level of animals, animals became sentient and intelligent, and level of technology was dropped back to near Stone Age with very little modern technology surviving the event. Eventually the world rebuilds but it takes centuries.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

Also, consider that over time upheavals in the world might result in the loss of documents and available technology. In the story I mentioned above one of the events that Rose Forrest lived through was The Great Disaster. It was an event where many humans were reduced to the level of animals, animals became sentient and intelligent, and level of technology was dropped back to near Stone Age with very little modern technology surviving the event. Eventually the world rebuilds but it takes centuries.

Who cares about some old personal documents in such a situation? People would be too busy with just surviving.

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Who cares about some old personal documents in such a situation? People would be too busy with just surviving.

Before the development of writing, each generation had to pass down their learned knowledge verbally to the next generation. If they didn't, then technology and advancements would be lost, and sometimes that indeed happened. There was a lot of relearning things their ancestors learned centuries before but failed to pass along. Now to be clear, I'm talking about the "real" world, not some fantasy book world. Without literacy there is little capacity to archive knowledge, little capacity to administrate civilization, little capacity to track business transactions, et cetera. Basically speaking, without literacy humanity would likely return to hunter-gatherer mentality after several generations once they lost the knowledge of their ancestors, forgot how to succeed in agriculture and animal husbandry. Once they reached the point of no longer being able to read the literature of their ancestors, they would eventually reach the point of having to relearn long forgotten knowledge. The good news is, they would also lose the ability to make war on large scales, ad their ability to destroy the planet for all creatures would be decimated. So score that as a victory for Mother Earth.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by OtinG

Before the development of writing, each generation had to pass down their learned knowledge verbally to the next generation. If they didn't, then technology and advancements would be lost, and sometimes that indeed happened. There was a lot of relearning things their ancestors learned centuries before but failed to pass along. Now to be clear, I'm talking about the "real" world, not some fantasy book world. Without literacy there is little capacity to archive knowledge, little capacity to administrate civilization, little capacity to track business transactions, et cetera. Basically speaking, without literacy humanity would likely return to hunter-gatherer mentality after several generations once they lost the knowledge of their ancestors, forgot how to succeed in agriculture and animal husbandry. Once they reached the point of no longer being able to read the literature of their ancestors, they would eventually reach the point of having to relearn long forgotten knowledge. The good news is, they would also lose the ability to make war on large scales, ad their ability to destroy the planet for all creatures would be decimated. So score that as a victory for Mother Earth.

Yes, yes. I'm not talking about stuff like that. Obviously important information has been and should always be stored in hard copy. This thread is about personal documents of private persons.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by OtinG

Before the development of writing, each generation had to pass down their learned knowledge verbally to the next generation. If they didn't, then technology and advancements would be lost, and sometimes that indeed happened. There was a lot of relearning things their ancestors learned centuries before but failed to pass along. Now to be clear, I'm talking about the "real" world, not some fantasy book world. Without literacy there is little capacity to archive knowledge, little capacity to administrate civilization, little capacity to track business transactions, et cetera. Basically speaking, without literacy humanity would likely return to hunter-gatherer mentality after several generations once they lost the knowledge of their ancestors, forgot how to succeed in agriculture and animal husbandry. Once they reached the point of no longer being able to read the literature of their ancestors, they would eventually reach the point of having to relearn long forgotten knowledge. The good news is, they would also lose the ability to make war on large scales, ad their ability to destroy the planet for all creatures would be decimated. So score that as a victory for Mother Earth.

Not aware of any evidence of large scale reversion to hunter-gatherer societies, but there are a number of examples of reversion to cropping and animal husbandry - e.g. Great Zimbabwe

Not much is known about the people and the culture of Great Zimbabwe. This is due to the fact that they had no written language and the oral traditions have not survived.

But the Romans had a written language, it's one of the foundations of the one I'm using now. Yet they failed to write down how they made concrete. It's only be rediscovered in the past couple of decades; the secrete [sic] ingredient -- 'fly ash', which they sourced from Mt Vesuvius. Which we could source from coal-fired power stations - oops

BR

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Metal can rust. Stone is the only true storage medium.

Edit: seriously, yeah, I check my external drives regularly and have swapped them out more than once. When the time comes they may no longer be accessible, I'll transfer my stuff to something else.

I do the same thing with my external hard drives. After a year or two I purchase a new one, do a copy and paste from the old drive, and then retire the old drive. Fortunately, the cost of external hard drives have been dropping, where each time I buy one the cost of the drive is less than the last one but the amount of storage is more than that last one. I've gone from 1/2GB, to 1GB, to 2GB over the past few years.

[Solitaire1]

BetterRed wrote the following as part of a post:

Originally Posted by BetterRed

But the Romans had a written language, it's one of the foundations of the one I'm using now. Yet they failed to write down how they made concrete. It's only be rediscovered in the past couple of decades; the secrete [sic] ingredient -- 'fly ash', which they sourced from Mt Vesuvius. Which we could source from coal-fired power stations - oops

BR

A factor in this is how literate were people in the past. One of the factors that worked against the two early writing systems of cuneiform and hieroglyphics was that they were difficult to learn and thus it limited literacy to only the Elite. From what I understand, one of the reasons that The Rosetta Stone was such an important discovery was that it allowed us to translate hieroglyphics so that we could get an idea of what they said.

One of the factors in the success of the Alphabet is that it was easy to learn, and thus allowed widespread literacy. This, in turn, will allow knowledge to be better retained for future generations, although changes in the language my cause issues in the future.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Solitaire1

I do the same thing with my external hard drives. After a year or two I purchase a new one, do a copy and paste from the old drive, and then retire the old drive. Fortunately, the cost of external hard drives have been dropping, where each time I buy one the cost of the drive is less than the last one but the amount of storage is more than that last one. I've gone from 1/2GB, to 1GB, to 2GB over the past few years.

I'm guessing you mean TB, not GB?

I use 3-4 TB external drives, as anything less is not enough for all my stuff.