On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 23:27:05 -0500, Carey Fisher - NCS wrote:

> EVERY media has problems with data retention over time.  And the problems
> can be and often are exacerbated by environmental conditions such as
> high temperature.  So why expect CDs to be any different?

Because when they first came out, we were told that music CDs were pretty-much indestructable - I remember 
television programmes that said that they could be scratched, got dirty, used as beermats, have stuff spilled 
on them, etc. and still be played with no problems - and a lot of people remember and still believe this. Now 
of course they *are* much more resistant to damage than vinyl records, which in turn were described as 
"unbreakeable" compared to shellac records (themselves easier to store without damage than cylinders) and so 
on.  We all now know that scrubbing a CD with carborundum will destroy it, but just keeping it in its box 
doesn't sound dangerous to the public at large, so they expect it to last "for ever" as long as they don't 
damage it.  Were records (shellac or vinyl) expected to deteriorate with time if you didn't scratch them, I 
wonder?

Cheers,



Howard Winter
St.Albans, England


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