OT: Longevity of DVD-R and CD-R / 2-Media Hedge

[Jules Richardson]

On Mon, 2005-03-14 at 23:51 +0100, Nico de Jong wrote:
> The fact is, that the development of drives is so quick, that even if you
> _could_ save a tape or disk or CD or whatever for 30 years, you wouldnt find
> the proper drive, and even if you did, it wouldnt be supported anymore.
> Let's go back 30 years; what were the dominant media at that time ? 1600 bpi
> reel-to-reel tapes, 7.25 or 30 MB harddisk (IBM 2311/2314), and 8" floppy
> discs. Some of my customers _still_ accept 8" disks and reels for financial
> transactions.

Philosophical question. As performance of a device goes up, does the
need for more performance (by the average user) go down?

In other words do we hit a point where the storage technology of the day
is so good for what the typical/power user needs that there is no
incentive for manufacturers to built anything better?

Curious as to what people think. I'm sure they'll always be innovation
in the lab and on specialist high-budget projects, but maybe one day
they'll just be nowhere left to go for Joe Public.

cheers

Jules