Xref: utzoo comp.sys.ibm.pc:30936 comp.sys.atari.st:17528
Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!iuvax!bobmon
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc,comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: (Yes my) SW Make it to the year 2000?
Message-ID: <22900@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 2 Jul 89 18:35:28 GMT
References: <754@mitisft.Convergent.COM> <1545@hjuxa.UUCP>
Reply-To: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Organization: malkaryotic
Lines: 17

mal@hjuxa.UUCP (LEACH) <1545@hjuxa.UUCP> :
-
-I recently sold a TRS-80 computer to someone that had an application
-written in 1979 for that machine.  He had begun to hoard the things because
-his application was written in assembly and he didn't want to convert it.


There was an article in a recent comp.risks digest concerning early
LandSat image data.  Apparently much of it is effectively lost, because
it was stored in formats which are no longer supported by any hardware.

With such cautionary examples around, I think a lot of software *must*
survive for the next ten years or so, just to maintain access to data
that will stay relevant for ten years.  Think of Lotus spreadsheets, for
example --- who wants to put the time into converting and reformatting
an old, big spreadsheet that may or may not ever be reused?  Why not
just save a copy of the program?  And an old PC clone to run it on....