Digital Dark Age - Revolution Preview

[January 10, 2011]
Imagine a future where humans are unable to access the data, literature, art, photographs, discoveries, and vital records of previous generations. That bleak future may be on the horizon! Learn how our fragile, rapidly obsolete systems of storing data could lead to a digital dark age.
This video, from the Computer History Museum's new exhibition: "Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing" explores the surprisingly fragile nature and longevity of the huge volumes of digital data we create.

"Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing" is the first major museum exhibition to trace the history of computers and information technology from the abacus to the Internet. More than 1,000 artifacts from the Museum's vast collection are featured in the exhibition including rare computers, audio and video, photographs, games and hands-on displays. See Revolution at the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley, California. Visitor information can be found at www.computerhistory.org/visit or on Facebook at facebook.com/ComputerHistory and on Twitter @computerhistory

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Computer
• History
• Museum
• Revolution
• Exhibition
• Exhibit
• Internet
• Data
• Loss
• Retention
• Obsolete
• World
• Wide
• Web
• technology
• Digital
• Dark
• Age

[MaLcH10R]

3:38 - Your doin it wrong.

[x246869]

1969 I went to high school day at a university. Picked up a book on what we used.. Algol, and the next year had spent months writing a program to play the solitaire game so popular now with windows. Went in with my program all written out, and found it was obsolete, and they had some new more interactive language to use. My first program obsolete before even running. I have since had a love/hate relationship with change.

[gian0pa]

open formats might be the solution. no more proprietary digital formats such as .doc, etc. we need open formats for all kinds of video, audio and text.

[acerb45666555]

read books!..long after this tech stuff fades, the Library will still exist! full of properly preserved knowledge!

[pbizunow]

Strongly agree!

Right now I'm caught with Amiga 880k disks and kilometres of 1/4" analog magnet tape i've recorded some 15 years ago (reel-to-reel was obsolete already then) -- and no hardware to open it...

[Chromegrillz]

We are in digital dark ages.

[Samthebam4044]

@psyjunta Here Your already starting to see that today. I mean lets face it what do you do on an average day that your computer cant handle, or even a few years old with a small upgrade? There's very few programs that really push current hardware that any of us use daily unless we're specialised like CAD or engineering or games. Most folk look at web/E-Mail video etc and none of that really stresses modern hardware like it did 15 years ago, HD Videos even possible with most low-end gear today

[wallacoloo]

3:31 - what does our government have anything to do with this?

[benjwgarner]

Ok, I see what you were getting at. I wonder if technology companies will come up with new uses that wouldn't have been imaginable. Kind of like how if you had asked people what they wanted on the internet when it was first introduced, they wold not have mentioned social networking sites (which are extremely popular) because they had never considered it. I guess at the technological singularity, though, every possible use would e pretty much covered because of almost instantaneous change.

[benjwgarner]

@psyjunta At the rate that technology progresses, though, and the requirements of it, exponential increases in improvements versus time will become so great that after a few years, it doubles, and a few years later, it doubles over a few months, and so on. The newest system may be available for half the price of what you have and with double the capabilities. At some point, though, physical limits on just how small things can be made and dwindling resources will slow this trend.

[sbalogh53]

Correction: An old unlabeled photo album I own is full of strangers.

I wish Youtube allowed comment editing. :)

[sbalogh53]

Another aspect of this story is that so many people no longer have the time or inclination to look at "old things". People are too caught up in the here and now... the next newest gadget to care about old stuff. I am the same in a way. I have so many photographs stored away both digitally and in printed form that I never look at, and probably never will. My children and relatives will be even less interested than I am in these photos. An old photo unlabeled album I own is full of strangers.