PDF (was publication of IASS papers on CDROM)

[Dominik Wujastyk]

On Wed, 20 Dec 2000, Gunthard Mueller wrote:

> What I personally envisage as feasible would be this kind of scenario.

[description of migrating-on-demand of data from obsolete formats]


In 1977/78 typed two chapters of the Kumarasambhava into machine-readable
format.  I used an IBM card punch machine.  I also wrote lots of programs,
and typed some other texts.

I vividly remember running (literally) to the computer centre in Oxford in
the late 1980s, when I heard that they were about to discard their last
card-reader.  I managed to hand my shoe-boxes of cards in to the
conversion service just days before they stopped accepting cards.  As it
was, the main card reader had already been shut down, and my cards had to
be partly entered by hand, and header-footer cards had to be punched with
a hand stencil.

The data I rescued from imminent loss is now on 5.25 floppies.  I cannot
read them either now.

I don't believe anybody who thinks data migration is simple, easy, or not
a major problem.  Preserving computer data is a dynamic, costly process
which requires pro-active management.

Cf. http://www.clir.org/cpa/abstract/pub63.html

--
Dominik Wujastyk
Founder, INDOLOGY list.