All these posts are making my point for me. Yes there are parchments and 
stone tablets going back centuries, but they are accessible only to 
professionals who know how to store and care for them. In 1000 years I 
imagine it will be the same for shellac 78s, cylinders, DVDs, CDs, you 
name it. Unlike great paintings, they won't be on display in a museum. 
Maybe online. Maybe directly accessible via the tap that goes directly 
into your brain.

Some materials may survive for that long. And like the other examples, 
who will know how to read them? I certainly don't read the cuneiform. 
Most of us would probably stumble reading our own languages as they were 
written a mere 300 years ago.

As for natural disasters, no one is claiming that their instruments will 
survive such.  A nuclear hit would eliminate a lot of storage problems! 
They seem to be claiming that with reasonable care, they can
survive a long time. I'd be happy with 50 years, and then someone else 
can migrate my collection after I'm dust.

joe salerno

On 8/26/2011 8:49 AM, Tom Fine wrote:
> The fallacy of all this age-claim stuff is that they test under known
> and/or current conditions. How can anyone project what the conditions
> will be as we get a couple of centuries out? What if a comet hits and
> toxifies the atmosphere? What if there's a nuclear or chemical
> conflagration? What man-made chemical compound is 1000 years old? So how
> does anyone know exactly what happens with a chemical compound centuries
> from now? I think it's dumb to even try and make claims of hundreds of
> years, but OK to say "reasonable testing conditions (spelled out in
> detail so as to withstand scientific scrutiny) tell us that this device
> and its component compounds should operate to current specifications for
> XX decades" with an outside cap of 100 years or so. And even then, all
> sorts of caveats should be included about potential atmospheric changes,
> ideal storage conditions and the possibility that they won't be possible
> within this timeframe, etc. I have no belief in any claims of
> semi-permanence for any complex technology-driven device or compound.
>
> -- Tom Fine
>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Richard"
> <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, August 26, 2011 9:29 AM
> Subject: [ARSCLIST] Rép. : Re: [ARSCLIST] New long lastin g DVD
>
>
>> Birch Bark manuscripts, Novgorod (Russia), dating back to the 15th:
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birch_bark_document
>>
>> Robert.
>>
>>>>> Lou Judson <[log in to unmask]> 2011-08-25 20:19 >>>
>> http://www.ancientscripts.com/sumerian.html
>>
>
>

-- 
Joe Salerno