Comments on: Trilobites & Kilobytes

By: Barry Pearson

Barry Pearson — Sat, 03 Dec 2005 02:31:43 +0000

Cari, you ask “Would PDF/A, XML, DNG and other standards truely be the answer? Or has all been lost already?”
I don’t believe there is “an answer”, in the sense of a single set of specifications that we should all be heading towards. Instead, I believe that archiving, to enable our work to be accessed in future, must always be seen as a process. Successful archives need active management.
We know this applies to physical media, and John’s experiences are evidence. But it probably applies to file formats too. I believe the trick is to reduce the rate of change of file formats to be much less than that of the physical media and interfaces, etc. Then as we copy our files from those old ZIP discs or CDs or whatever, we should also check whether it is time to convert to the next standard formats.
In 20 years time, or perhaps 10, when we have a standard for 3D moving images captured from occular implants, (“Just LOOK, and we will do the rest”), DNG will probably be inadequate for the purpose. We may need something much more suitable for quantum computing. But if we have managed to concentrate all of our raws into the DNG+XML formats, we can expect high quality converters between the new format and DNG. (Both ways – make a DNG image part of a 3D movie, or capture a still from the movie into DNG format).
PDF/A, DNG, XMP, etc, can be seen as stepping stones, as an alternative to dead-ends. Or as the “hubs” in a “hub and spoke” model of how to get there from here.

By: Cari Jansen

Cari Jansen — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 16:17:47 +0000

Standardisation has to be amongst most viable answers to issues related to long-term digital data preservation.
Archivists are running around bald headed, pulling out their hair in search of a solution for preservation AND access to gzillions of proprietary digital data formats that have arrived on their doorstep.
How can we ensure that 100years from now when we, the creators, are no longer here, people or digital devices can still access, read and view such files?
Would PDF/A, XML, DNG and other standards truely be the answer? Or has all been lost already?
Your story indicates that even simple data-migration within such a short period of time poses issues.
We can send a Rover to Mars, but can we preserve the imagery and data collected long-term?

By: Ben Reilly

Ben Reilly — Fri, 02 Dec 2005 15:04:57 +0000

The problem is that AppleTalk is only supported for discovery and printing on 10.4- not for file transfer. You need to use AFP over TCP/IP, which I _think_ is supported on 8.6. The way to do it would be by connecting to afp://aaa.bbb.ccc.ddd