On Jan 24, 2005, at 9:25 AM, Dave Tweed wrote:

> So, the question is, does the "rot" of the aluminum layer actually 
> destroy
> the pits in the polycarbonate?

Ah.  I was wondering whether I should bring that up.  Someone said that
digital medial was all-or-nothing whereas analog media just 
deteriorates.
But the underlying recording technologies are all fundamentally analog, 
so
suitably sensitive and/or obscure procedures might make normally 
unusable
media readable, given "only" some specialized equipment (like I hear 
people
are now reading vinyl records with lasers...)

Of course, what might be available professionally to future 
archeologists
and such doesn't help Joe Family with his found-but-damaged picture CDs,
but there's at least some hope that "data" from the 2000s won't be 
entirely
lost.

OTOH, trends toward intentional destruction of data are a bit 
depressing from
a future historian's point of view...

BillW
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