Quote:
Originally Posted by SiriusHardware
I think I'm well and truly overwritten as regards duplication of PET cassettes, and whether it can be done by analogue means. 
As Owen suggests, it is better to capture it in the form of a digital file which can be written back to a tape at some point, although this is an interesting point: Colin's tapes and the hardware to replay them are still working after 40+ years - can we honestly be sure that we will still have something which will play .WAV or .MP3 files in 40 years? For most of us here, this is fortunately not something we are likely to need to worry about. |
Yes, retention in many forms of non-magnetic tape Digital media is another issue. DVD-R's could be less than 2 years it seems (rather less than old VHS tapes), with very few committed to giving an expected lifetime. And FLASH memory based memory-cards minimum is only around 10years (Although so are many EPROM's), with maybe higher-density multi-level ones being more vulnerable. However, it seems many old floppy disks are not faring quite so well after a few decades, and have heard the some old media needs to be baked first to prevent it falling to bits when played after being stored a long time.
But hopefully, with copies distributed around the 'net, then that should ensure there's always one available somewhere (There was a rule of backups, of needing something stored in at least 3 different places - including off-site - to ensure it really was).