27 Jan
2023
27 Jan
'23
8:54 p.m.
When I worked in the intelligience industry, the government spent a lot
of money tasking someone (I think it was Kodak) to determine the best
media for archival storage. It included traditional 6250 9 track
tapes and the then-popular exabyte 8mm (which was atrociously short
lived). I pointed out that magnetic storage was probably always going
to be problematic and things needed “digital refresh” if you really
wanted to keep them.
If you know the tape may be problematic when played back, there are
things you can do. I was gifted the master tapes of one of the radio
shows originated at WJHU in the 70’s. I had them sent out to a company
who “baked” them, but then they also had to redo all the splices on them
when they were played back.