>>>>> "Jon" == Jon \"maddog\" Hall via WLUG <wlug@lists.wlug.org> writes:


> I will see you all of those pieces of media and raise you about
> 19,000 35mm slides to scan in.

LOL!  I've got some slides too... but not nearly that many. 

> On Fri, Jan 27, 2023 at 5:47 PM John Stoffel <john@stoffel.org> wrote:

>>>>>> "Jon" == Jon \"maddog\" Hall via WLUG <wlug@lists.wlug.org> writes:

>> In 1975 I was working for Aetna Life and Casualty in Hartford, Connecticut.   At that time
>     Aetna
>> was the largest multiline Insurance company and also the largest commercial user of IBM
>     equipment
>> in the "Free World" (which goes to show that with enough qualifiers you can be the best of
>> anything).

>> In any case we had 500,000 12" magnetic tape drives on site, with another 100,000 in a salt
>     mine
>> for "long term storage".   For those tapes the "retention time" was 9999 years.

>> Some of the older tapes were marked as seven-track, 128 bits-per-inch.

>> I asked my boss about trying to read those tapes, and he assured me there was a seven-track
>     tape
>> drive stored along with the tapes, wrapped in bubble wrap.

>> "Yes", I said, "but where is the computer that can attach to that tape drive, and the OS
>     that can
>> drive the tape controller, and the operator that can boot and run that operating system?"

>> My boss put his finger to his lips and said 'Shhhhhhhhh".

>     I'm in the same boat with 43,000+ pieces of media offsite at Iron
>     Mountain in a mix of DAT, DLT 7k, SDLT320 and LTO6 media that might
>     need to be restored.

>     And let's ignore the 8mm tapes that sat in a couple of boxes for 15+
>     yeats without anyone touching them ... even after I scrapped the tape
>     library to read them.

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