Hidden Magnetic Messages From Space Discovered

Data storage on media outlives the lifetime of the media technology. I still have some 8 inch floppy disks around somewhere, but I have no idea what's on them nor do I have the hardware to read them.

Then how can you be sure the data is still there?

Well, you got me there. It's most likely a program I wrote that ran on a Z80 microprocessor, so it's useless to me now anyway!

Anyone rememebr the PDP1?

Back in my early years at Motorola, I worked on the development, and manufacture, of the plated wire memory system.

Plated wire memory - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedi

It was bulky, heavy and it worked. But it was soon obsolete.

I still had a "record player" back then.

I've started decoding the messages. They appear to be from very strange creatures with huge rabbit-type ears!

Here's what I have so far:

Ahh, we were so young and idealistic back then.

I wonder if the record on board of recorded farm noises still works.

Perhaps the technolgy is right around the corner for permanent information storage.

Scientists are working on it using various forms of media but in the end the problem really comes down to what data you would want to store for say 20,000 years and how the heck do you ensure that in 20,000 years when language, technology and even iconography have radically changed people know how to read and understand the data.

An interesting thought exercise, math based and rosetta stone decoding ideas have been proposed, but even considering a near extinction level event can anyone think of any data now that would be useful to store for say 20,000 years and how would you represent it to people from the future to understand?

Permanent data storage is here.

Ironic that after thousands of years we cannot beat the cave dwellers or Egytians in

saving information for posterity.

A picture is worth a thousand words,so images may be the only timeless language.

Insofar as the media to store these images, chisled in stone seemed to work for the

ancients.

Or some low-tech method,like the obsolete microfiche system.

Perhaps using Mica as a storage plate,laser etched into the Mica sheets.

Mica does not deteriorate like film.

Right back to chisled in stone.

All you need is a light source and microscope.

A succession of images updated every generation could allow following the changes

chronologically.

Macro images could show how to view the images,and construction of a mechanical

indexer should not be a problem.

Call your next case.

But who knows,we may have blown ourselves back to the stone ages by then.

I don't think the ancients did all that good a job of saving info for posterity. We have a few examples that have managed to survive, but the vast majority of what they produced is gone. Most of what we do have is handled with great care to keep from damaging it further.

That said, the only advantage I can see that we moderns have is redundancy. Anything we try to communicate, including this very posting, is likely to end up in places all over the globe in who knows how many formats. Disaster or carelessness may lose the information in one location, but the information isn't lost. Hard to find, perhaps, but not lost.

What's wrong with your computer? Your posts are all double-line-spaced.

Mica may last a long time, but it is actually kind of delicate on its edges.

I would suggest books made of thin sheets of a tough aluminum alloy etched with pictures.

I wonder if you could make rolls of aluminum alloy into a movie medium, by perforating it with tiny holes. Instead of projecting the images onto a screen, which would have problems with diffraction, you would just look at it directly as it played, maybe using a magnifying glass. Not for large audiences, but for just one or a few people to view at a time.

That might last longer than transparent plastic film printed with ink.

I ran it through my decoder ring and I think you've read enough