[ale] Engineering Archaeology

[Jim Kinney]

You just nailed it.

Crayon
THE backup tool

Hahahaha!!!

-- 
James P. Kinney III

Every time you stop a school, you will have to build a jail. What you gain
at one end you lose at the other. It's like feeding a dog on his own tail.
It won't fatten the dog.
- Speech 11/23/1900 Mark Twain


*http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/
<http://heretothereideas.blogspot.com/>*

On Tue, Jan 13, 2026, 6:42 PM Steve Litt via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

>
> On Sat, 10 Jan 2026 14:39:21 -0500 (EST)
> "jon.maddog.hall--- via Ale" <ale at ale.org> wrote:
>
> > One of my fears about e-books, the web and documentation that can
> > disappear as easy as "rm -r *", is that we will lose a LOT of this
> > information and not know where we came from and how we got here.
>
> Good backups allay that fear. What I fear is that over time current
> physical and software formats are replaced and disappear. I can't read
> my QIC tape backups anymore. I can no longer read my cptools floppy
> backups: Hell, I don't currently have a floppy drive installed. With
> cases no longer accommodating CD/DVD/BluRay, how long will it be until
> those become very difficult to get. I have nothing to read my old VHS
> video tapes. I have no way to recover any files from my ancient Kaypro
> 2x, even if I did have a floppy drive.
>
> It's very important to take old backups and convert some of them to
> newer formats every once in a while.
>
> LOL, I still have a crayon picture I drew in 1955 of my trip to the zoo.
>
> SteveT
>
> Steve Litt
> Featured book: Troubleshooting Techniques of the Successful
> Technologist http://www.troubleshooters.com/techniques
>
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