Date : Thu, 31 Jul 2003 19:40:18 +0100
From : Tony <kilm02@...>
Subject: Re: Doc Project
How much bandwidth would such a central server need?. I have a machine
connected 24 hours a day and could provide unlimited (well, almost)
space but would only be able to handle about 500MB/day. Could still be
useful as a complete storage mirror though.
=46rom memory, EPROM data retention was expected to be around 10 years
but can vary greatly due to storage conditions, background radiation,
purity of materials used (so from batch to batch retention could
vary). Many eproms I programmed in the 80's are now unusable with bit
errors, and some of my floppies have died, usually those with original
source code I don't have backups of. I still have teletext and early
ramdisk ROM source, along with saved teletext pages from 1983-5, but I
daren't try reading them in case I discover they're lost :(.
(PS: Does anyone on here have a copy of a program called 'ROMblaster'
it was a sideways rom management program written mostly in basic
with a similar look to the Solidisk menu, but with the extra feature
of a 'search and destroy' for ROM protection code and disassembler. I
never released it commercially (I just wrote it for a bit of fun) but
did share it at the computer clubs (remember those? :) ). I remember
being offered a copy at the Washington club late 1984ish so it might
have survived.
Tony.
On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 17:19:20 +0100 (BST), you wrote:
>> Cannot commit anything at the moment, but the University of Leeds is
>> currently bidding for the UK Digital Curation Centre (funded by JISC
for
>> FE/HE) and part of the role of the centre is to preserve software
>> documentation. We might well be intersted collaborative work.
>
>The problem (IMHO) is that everything's too fragmented at present, at
least in
>terms of preservation of the various models. Plenty of people collect
machines,
>but they're spread all over the place. Less people collect documentation
or
>software for those machines. Fewer still preserve ROM images (although
efforts
>seem to be better in the Acorn world that for other manufacturers)
>
>There doesn't seem to be an effort to try to collect everything together
in one
>place for a particular model or manufactuer, say. The doc project goes a
long
>way for BBC machines in terms of the documentation, but doesn't store
ROM
>images - and as the site maintainer has mentioned, space is currently a
>problem.
>
>What's the design life of an EPROM? 15 years or so? There are probably
ones out
>there that have already failed and been lost. Working machines might be
>abundant now, but they won't be in another 20 years or so - and if one
day the
>only way to show how these machines operated is through the use of
emulators
>then it's important to preserve the software and ROM code now.
>
>I'm hoping to make a stab at collecting data together for Acorn 8-bit
machines
>(System 1 - Master) at the very least; I think I can swing a few GB of
online
>storage to hold things, with documentation obviously taking up the most
space.
>Plenty more room available off-line if needs be.
>
>As scanning documentation is a huge task, I'm wondering if an online
list of
>'who has what' could also be useful - intended for collectors out there
who
>have essentially static collections. Whilst they might not be willing to
scan
>documentation in they may be willing to allow themselves to be
contactable in
>the event that somebody needs something obscure looking up, and that
sort of
>service could still prove invaluable for keeping some of the more
obscure
>hardware running. I've certainly found it frustrating for some of my
rarer
>machines to know that there's probably *someone* else out there who may
own
>one, but finding them can prove impossible.
>
>cheers
>
>Jules
>
>
>=====
>Backward conditioning: putting saliva in a dog's mouth in an attempt to
make a bell ring.
>
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