A List of Lost Formats | Hacker News Reader

A List of Lost Formats

experimentaljetset.com

Well, quite interesting.

However, these are not format (in the sens "file format") but more storage media, the title is not really right.

It's really sad that the picture are only "black shadow" representation (I was hoping that it'd be replaced by a true pict of the medium on :hover.

A few of these mediums are in fact not lost yet (DVD ? Memory Stick ? Smart Card ? CD ? Holographic Data Storage [this one can't be lost, it does not exist yet !!]).

Interesting data would have beginning/end date of manufacturing. And sorting the list would not have hurt.

Finally a few of the storage have way too many data available (18 track tape => no data at all, you kidding me right ? what's the point ?) and the dimensions and capacity does not always use the same units.

tl;dr: The idea is really interesting, but they should come back when they'll have something better to present. This article has really been botched.

Experimental Jetset is a pretty well known graphic design studio (at least in the design world) so this project is probably best viewed through an aesthetic lens.

There's always the Computer History Museum if you're interested in such gory details: http://www.computerhistory.org

this project is probably best viewed through an aesthetic lens

In other words, it's a bit technically clueless.

Two or maybe three weeks ago I read here|slashdot|reddit (can't remember) talks about uses of magnetic tapes: they are still being used for large scale backups. Not outdated (unless you take the point they have a successor, which I am not sure is valid for those using MT)

I attended an interesting event in Silicon Valley last week where storage media was one of the topics. The view there was that tape is going to finally die and be replaced by disk. Essentially we'll use disk for long term storage and flash where we'd use disk today.

Was there any discussion about longevity of storage of disk vs tape? I remember a claim that DAT tape had an expected lifetime of 100 years.

They're missing the not-so-famous Avatar Shark Drive, which had 250MB disks (built with metal plates, like mini hard drives). I used to own two of them. Ran fine under Windows 2000, and they were quite fast too. Great for backups.

I don't see how the compact disk belongs on a list of lost formats . . . or the DVD for that matter.

I guess they mean lost in the sense that it has an immediate successor available for its intended use, e.g. BD replacing DVD.

More than likely, the inclusion of modern formats is a preliminary act.

Mis-titled. A great number of these are still operational. They are just used less often or are harder to find. Obsolete or "lost" is not synonymous with "no longer leading edge".

I was always pissed that Sony didn't let Minidisc become the new floppy disk alternative.... it was perfect.

I know you could get data drives for them - but they were uncommon in the extreme.

Plus, every TV show and movie that wanted to show someone stealing data, because they looked cool.

(it was a magneto-optical disk in a hard case, pocket sized.

What about: Punchcards, magnetic wire, wax cylinder, paper tape, piano scrolls, all kinds of film...the polaroid....

Add to the list:

Laserdisc, Kodak APS, MS/MS Duo, CF/CFII, SD/MMC, XD, T-Flash, M2

Anyone remember the cauzin strip reader?

MOD and DVD-RAM are still in use.

Vinyl LPs are far from being dead, there's a huge (albeit a niche) market.

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