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Old May 16th 18, 04:06 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Ed Cryer
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Posts: 2,621
Default OT; old CDs and DVDs

Diesel wrote:
Ed Cryer news Fri, 11 May 2018 19:49:28 GMT in alt.windows7.general, wrote:

[snip]

Have you ever seen "Logan's Run"? I was impressed by the spinning
storage discs, and it made me think about ancient papyrus, vellum,
paper. Medieval monks had a bad habit of reusing classical
manuscripts, after scraping them. Modern technology is finding all
kinds of things behind psalters and prayer-books. Boccaccio and
Petrarch wrote about well-worn paths between monastery libraries
and the scriptoria. Umberto Eco's "The Name of The Rose" revolves
around something similar. Euripides wrote 95 plays, and 18
survive; while many famous Greek and Roman writers survive by one
manuscript alone, often dug up in some place where there was an
earthquake or eruption.

Still, I guess that paper has greater longevity than laser-burnt
discs.


Even if the laser-burnt disc had the same or better longevity than
various kinds of paper?, who's to say, a few thousand years (or even
a few hundred years from now) anyone would have the necessary
equipment in working condition that could actually do something
useful with the disc made centuries before?

Atleast with the present discoveries from long ago, it's text or
something else somebody today can read and understand. It doesn't
require hardware and software from the age of that writing or
knowledge of such to do it.




Can you think of any technology of the past that's now incomprehensible?
I know that people have claimed there is (like Erich von Däniken in his
"Chariots of the gods". Space alien technology!). But they've all been
debunked on further investigation. Things like the Egyptians knowing
about pi, having used batteries; Archimedes having used lasers in the
3rd c. BC. How the ancient Brits moved the megaliths of Stonehenge all
that way; the Romans using concrete under water (see here for the
latter;
https://www.nature.com/news/seawater...ncrete-1.22231)

We know how to make waterwheels, Archimedean screws, Roman ballistas,
Greek fire, pulleys, etc.

Ed

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