[ale] Engineering Archaeology

[Jon "maddog" Hall]

Sorry, but as an archivist I can vouch for the fact that the simple use of
crayons alone is not good enough.   You need archival quality paper, or
better yet, crayon on some type of stable stone.   Modern day acid-washed
paper falls apart after only a few decades.

On the other hand, have you ever taken a good look at ancient stone
tablets?   Some are really hard to read....

On Tue, Jan 13, 2026 at 8:00 PM Jim Kinney via Ale <ale at ale.org> wrote:

> 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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