Comment Data is easy... (Score 1) 498
Slightly off topic, but data is easy to recover! The real problem is when old hardware is required for certain things.
For example:
My uncle works for a university in the UK. They have a ~£70K machine for chemical analysis, I forget what exactly now.
It came with a special 8bit ISA interface card, and talks to a DOS program on a nearby PC. But the PC died. Now ISA slots remained common, they thought no problem....but the software refuses to run on computers which have a processor faster than 100MHz.
This time around, we managed to find a old 486 for them, load it up with a new HDD, CD drive and floppy drive, those having had problems. When the computer fails again in 7-10 years time....will we be able to find something old enough again?