Archive.org Deploys Macromedia Software Titles 148
Jon-Erik Hexum writes "Now at the internet archive, the new software section contains over 10,000 CD-ROM titles donated by Macromedia. In an interesting discussion, the Software Archive is struggling with deciding on the best method for preserving CD-ROM images for the long term."
WooHoo!! (Score:1)
This prompts for a name change (Score:1, Funny)
Best CD-Rom backup system (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Best CD-Rom backup system (Score:3, Funny)
Hey it worked for PGP...
OCR and CPIP (Score:3, Funny)
OCR Better but not for this sort of thing (Score:2)
Re:OCR Better but not for this sort of thing (Score:2)
Re:Best CD-Rom backup system (Score:1)
Personally, I'd take a digital picture rather than use film. Then copy the pictures to various media (CD, Hard disk, etc) for backup.
Re:Best CD-Rom backup system (Score:5, Funny)
The real answer to backing up 10,000 CDs....
555,556 Floppies!
Everyone has a floppy drive.
Re:Best CD-Rom backup system (Score:2)
Damn PC usin' fools <grumble>
Re:Best CD-Rom backup system (Score:2)
650M * 1floppy/1.5M * 10000 = 4,333,333 floppies!
Re:Best CD-Rom backup system (Score:2)
Re:Best CD-Rom backup system (Score:2)
wow, already? (Score:1, Insightful)
Of course, when offering 10,000 CDs for download... a little extra bandwidth would probably be prudent.
Re:wow, already? (Score:1, Funny)
Re:wow, already? (Score:5, Funny)
oh, wait.
Re:wow, already? (Score:1, Offtopic)
Unfortunately this has never been witnessed by a female.
How best to store these things... (Score:3, Funny)
they have these little, thin Plastic things called 'Compact Disks'...
Oh, wait...
Use the Public (Score:5, Interesting)
Jason
ProfQuotes [profquotes.com]
Re:Use the Public (Score:3, Insightful)
Not much archival value left then. P2P networks are great distribution mechanisms... they suck as archival systems. Public P2P networks at least.
Re:Use the Public (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Use the Public (Score:2, Interesting)
On the other side of the fence is are proponents of very centralized, backed up storage using DVDr's for product snapshots and tapes as a sort of revision control system.
Perhaps some mixture of both is what we'll do, but its the principle I'm talking about!
_____________________________
Onroad: [onlawn.net] Boldly reporting the SUV war from the middle of the road.
best method for preserving CD-ROM images (Score:1, Funny)
The obvious solution (Score:5, Funny)
The obvious problem with that solution (Score:2)
They should burn the CD images to CDs.
The obvious problem with that:
The dies in writable CDs have a much shorter lifetime than the printed ones. Like three-ish years. So figure they have to make new copies ever two years, plus at least two spars of each, for redundancy. Call it 15K/year CD burnings just for this batch of 10,000 images.
Now an automated burning operation can do a bit more than 7 1/2 disks/hour single-shift. But then you have to have a carousell to handle 10,000 CDs (times several for redundancy), in order to automate the process.
So I don't think burning them to CDs is the solution.
Call it 3 CDs per gig. Or a bunch more, since most of 'em won't be full, so make that 10/gig. That's one terrabyte. Don't we have hard drives about that big now? Build a RAID, mirror it (offsite), replace disks as they die, and clone the mirror every few years to cover for catastrophic multi-disk failures and obsolescence of the RAID platforms and disks. Online all the time that way, too.
Re:The obvious problem with that solution (Score:2)
Protect them from light and bleach fumes and they'll last a longer time than if you leave them lying about on your desk. B-) Protect them from oxygen and they'll probably last quite a while.
But you can't count on it. Especially if they're your only backup. Doubly so if you keep sticking them in a drive and shining a laser on them because somebody wants to read the contents.
So you have to assume they're short-timers when you do your planning.
Re:The obvious problem with that solution (Score:2)
I'm obviously out of the loop here.... (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm obviously out of the loop here....
What the heck are on those 10,000 cds (cd's?) anyways, and why is it so cool? Games? MP3s? Movies? Pr0n?
Re:I'm obviously out of the loop here.... (Score:3, Funny)
(Sorry, no link, too many porn popups)
Re:I'm obviously out of the loop here.... (Score:1)
(ha ha only serious)
Famous last words.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Famous last words.. (Score:2)
So can anyone give us kind of a list? (Score:2)
Preserving CD-ROMs (Score:5, Insightful)
While I was indulging my data storage daydreams, I came across a discussion board thread [photo.net] which talks about the various issues surround storing digital media (pictures, in this case). It was pretty intersting reading. I hadn't thought about gold-plated CDs before, and that sounds like a great idea as long as the hardware to read them exists for the duration of the media's shelf life. Even NASA has been having trouble [nasa.gov] in that area.
At first blush, I'd say the way to save all the images would be some sort of distrubuted filesystem, a la Freenet. Package an ASCII metafile with the ROMs file format info along with the actual image file and that should do it. Some sort of centralized system of making sure that at least N copies exist in "the wild" and the data could be reasonably safe. I'm oversimplifying, of course, but it occurred to me that data integrity and file formats might not be the only barriers to long-term data storage. Governments aren't especially data-friendly 100% of the time, either. If you really want to save data for all posterity, you have to protect it from yourself as well.
-B
Distributed Data (Score:5, Interesting)
As storage availabilities and requirements rise, an encoder/decoder for many formats would become trivial, notable exceptions being made for massively integrated applications (*cough* Office *cough*)
After all, how do you think Star Trek managed to take 50,000 year-old data crystals and read the files stored on them, or interface with Borg computers? : )
Re:Distributed Data (Score:1)
Re:Distributed Data (Score:3, Funny)
Samba?
Re:Distributed Data (Score:2)
Re:Distributed Data (Score:1)
I believe you have just described XML.
Yes, but how would you store the W3C Recommendation that specifies XML?
Bootstrapping (Score:1)
This would mean that every video/audio/image should have it's own decoder attached.
In what programming language would you write the decoder? You'd have to store the specification for that language as well.
HTML files would have the HTML spec.
I'd assume the HTML spec would be written in Unicode text in the English language. The Unicode specification is also written in the English language. So how would you store the specification of the English language itself?
Now, this doesn't help for executables (currently, anyway)
All you'd have to store for an executable is a description of the virtual machine it runs on, that is, an emulator. But then, you have to write the description in some language...
Preserving CD-ROM Images! (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep them in the standard
Re:Preserving CD-ROM Images! (Score:2)
Re:Preserving CD-ROM Images! (Score:2)
Re:Preserving CD-ROM Images! (Score:1)
Yeah, it'll work, but it probably won't be til 2050 that computers get fast enough to run at close to the original speed in Bochs. What's so hard about emulating x86 anyway? I can run 68K Mac software in Basilisk II with about a 8 to 1 speed hit because of the emulation. Bochs is closer to 100 to 1.
The sad part is, in 2050 proprietary s/w like Virtual PC or SoftPC still won't be public domain yet.
Out of print may imply fair use (Score:1)
The sad part is, in 2050 proprietary s/w like Virtual PC or SoftPC still won't be public domain yet.
But if it's out of print, copying it may be fair use in the United States, as taking a work out of print may amount to an admission by the copyright owner that the work has so little value that any unauthorized use would not reduce its value.
If you know of any precedents otherwise, please respond.
Re:Preserving CD-ROM Images! (Score:2)
Re:Preserving CD-ROM Images! (Score:1)
Re:Preserving CD-ROM Images! (Score:2)
Great post... NOT (Score:3, Insightful)
As the article stands, we have no idea if this story is a genuine big deal or something we can all ignore.
Re:Great post... NOT (Score:2)
Introducing Slashdot Server Benchmarks (Score:5, Funny)
How do we use your system ?
We provide this service as a tool for analyzing the strength of your server. To use our service, simply pick up a random story from the internet and send it to us. We will post the story and the time taken to bring down your server is inversely proportional to the strength of your server. For best results, choose stories that contain evil news about M$, RIAA or USPTO. For advanced options...
Slashdot demonstrated their system by posting links from Archive.org. The site was brought down in less than a minute. Many server manufacturers all over the world thanked Slashdot for providing such a wonderful service. "We see this as an opportunity to serve news to the world and testing our servers at the same time...", said Slash Dottroll, Product Manager at IBM Server Division.
Keep it simple and anticipate future needs (Score:2, Funny)
- Rube G.
Re:A radical rethink? (Score:5, Informative)
* 3D (35)
* Adv/Mkt Collateral (37)
* Audio (8)
* Business Ap (370)
* CBT (897)
* Collection (7)
* Commercial Design (45)
* Corporate (179)
* Demo (27)
* Editorial (15)
* Education (61)
* Educational (1355)
* Educational MM (178)
* Educational Multimedia (47)
* Edutainment (466)
* Entertainment (788)
* File Types (0)
* Fine Art (60)
* Government (1)
* Illustration (58)
* Interactive Business (482)
* Interactive Portfolio (11)
* Interactive Reference (185)
* Kidsware (238)
* Marketing Collateral (61)
* Non-commercial (93)
* Photo Manipulation (15)
* Promotion (24)
* Promotional (829)
* Reference (354)
* Self Promotion (9)
* Shocked Sites (81)
* Tool (2)
* Training (4)
* Type Design (21)
* Uncategorized (1361)
* Web Page/Site (59)
Re:A radical rethink? (Score:1)
I'll be that they're really a shocked site at the moment! :^P
Struggling is right. (Score:2)
Re:Struggling is right. (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.archive.org/cdroms/macromedia.php/ma
This sort of thing (the file or directory name repeating itself ad infinitum in the URL) is normally an indication that someone messed up a RewriteRule containing a variable. Most common cause is someone attempting to host multiple domains on one server via mod_rewrite, though I don't know whether or not that's what archive.org is up to.
Not Macromedia Software (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the google cache: [216.239.39.100]
Re:Not Macromedia Software (Score:2, Interesting)
"Macromedia has generously donated their collection of CD-ROM's to the Archive's CD-ROM & Software Library. The Collection consists of over 10,000 CD-ROM titles (from the Made-With-Macromedia Program) and we are in the process of making this into an accessible resource for people to use and enjoy.
We welcome all feedback!"
I wonder... these are software titles that were Made-With-Macromedia... I presume they were Made-By-Other-Companies... Is this some requirement of M W M that you send them a copy of what you made. If so, what right do they have to give it away to the entire world now?
I'm sure they're not giving away copies of their Made-By-Macromedia software.. I haven't been able to browse it yet, of course, but I doubt they're giving away copies of older versions of Flash or Dreamweaver.
Interesting that they regard everyone else's creations giveaways! Of course this is purely assumption... in a few hours when the slashdotted meltdown subsides, I'll take a look, but it seems pretty lousy if what I'm guessing is actually the case! After all, I seriously doubt Macromedia even ever made 500 software titles!
Re:Not Macromedia Software (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not Macromedia Software (Score:2, Informative)
Also in the cache listing [google.com] are cache links to many pages with listings of the actual cds. I'm not sure this stuff is really worth all the fuss, but I guess people have said that about most junk that historians and archeologists treasure today.
OT: Did anyone else notice Google's new tour [google.com] page? Ok, so I'm a little bored today.
wtf (Score:1)
Re:wtf (Score:2)
Next up: Macrovision titles! (Score:2)
Macromedia ? (Score:3, Funny)
Is it really that big a deal? (Score:3, Informative)
That isn't too much by today's standards, is it? Esp. considering you only need read-only access
Re:Is it really that big a deal? (Score:1)
Re:Is it really that big a deal? (Score:2)
Pyramids! (Score:3, Funny)
Cool CD-Roms (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Cool CD-Roms (Score:2)
Backups (Score:2)
The preserving machine... (Score:4, Funny)
If you want to preserve something forever, encode it in a DNA form (I think that most of DNA code is inactive, so there are plenty of space), grow an live thing from it, and while descendents last, your software will survive.
A word of caution: don't try this with Microsoft software, the world have enough bugs already.
Re:The preserving machine... (Score:1)
Re:The preserving machine... (Score:1)
Silly person! As long as you're altering the DNA to store the data, you might as well tweak it a little more so the critter contains the decoding instructions.
For instance, ever see one of those butterflies with circular wing markings that supposedly look like a large eye? And some scientist told you this was supposed to frighten off predators?
Nope. Those wing patterns are actually tiny little CD-ROMs. If you pop one of these butterflies into your CD drive, you'll see that the disc contains a PDF file with details on how to decode the main message in the critter's DNA. (Turns out it's the missing 18 1/2 minutes from Nixon's Watergate tapes.)
DNA isn't that reliable (Score:3, Interesting)
-sk
Re:DNA isn't that reliable (Score:2)
Of course, using this kind of mechanisms must be used for real important things. If happens some kind of extintion-level event, like the big meteor in Deep Impact or a nuclear war, well, would be nice to send a message thru ants, amoebas or things of that kind to who will come after us.(yea, I know, too much science fiction and not applicable to the actual discussion
Re:The preserving machine... (Score:1)
Whether DNA is inactive or not is part of the code. You cannot write an arbitrary data sequence and hope you still have an intron (inactive code).
Re:The preserving machine... (Score:1)
Hate to break the news to you, but perhaps your "complete" collection is missing a volume. :-) It's a collection of 15 Philip K. Dick short stories. No longer in print, but available used. I can't remember if Amazon is evil or good this week, but here's a link if you're interested:
The Preserving Machine [amazon.com]
VMWare (Score:2)
Is it worth preserving in the first place? (Score:3, Insightful)
Why not... (Score:2)
more info on the CD-ROM archive. (Score:3, Informative)
more info on the CD-ROM archive (formatted right!) (Score:5, Informative)
I'm the volunteer at the Internet Archive who posted the 'call for comments' message on their CD-ROM forums, and I just wanted to clarify a couple of things:
- the archive consists of CD-ROMs created by third parties with the 'Made For Macromedia' program, as another poster said. So it's all multimedia software created with Macromedia tools - basically, everything sent to Macromedia for approval between certain dates. Macromedia kindly donated this to the Internet Archive.
- right now it's largely a physical archive, not a digital one - the content is still on the source CD-ROMs.
- i'm a volunteer in the VERY early stages of looking at the Macromedia CD-ROM archive - in fact, my first day. i surface from the pile of software boxes to discover my call for archiving suggestions has slashdotted the site. hurrah!
- there are currently only a couple of disc images downloadable from the site. they were put up last year, and I wouldn't recommend downloading them for now, since there's some compatibility and completeness issues with them.
- most of the discs are either multimedia (like virtual guides to Jerusalem, educational guides) or what you might call ephemera (promotional CD-ROMs) The Internet Archive doesn't have any rights to post any of them online right now.
- future plans would ideally include making some of these CDs available to the public for either remote access or download, providing the correct rights issues could be dealt with. With the shelf life of CDs somewhat of an unknown factor, creating digital archives of these discs and making sure they're preserved for future generations is important.
Thanks,
Simon.
Re:more info on the CD-ROM archive (formatted righ (Score:2)
Oh no! (Score:1, Funny)
confusion on the CDROM collection (Score:2, Informative)
Our statement that Macromedia donated 10,000 CDROMs is incorrect. What Macromedia graciously did was to let us use their catalog of the CDROMs sent to them through the Made With Macromedia program. The also let our staff examine the CDROM's so that we can ensure the catalog is correct and facilitate contacting rightsholders to see if they would be interested in access to their materials.
We are very excited about providing access to any materials that people would like to be preserved. Please contact me, brewster@archive.org or more efficiently info@archive.org if you have any materials you would like to be added to the archive.
-brewster
Correct this item (Score:2)
1) there's basically nothing to download, and never will be
2) 99% of the 10k titles are utter junk anyway
Hey guys-- get off your millionaire butts and fix this broken resource.