GOPHER

[John Foust]

At 03:31 PM 10/26/2004, you wrote:
>I know this has been discussed before, but here's my two cents... the 10-year
>rule is (in my opinion) an obsolete metric.  I really think we should be using
>at least a 15-year or 20-year metric.
>A 15-year-metric would put "vintage" at 1989 -- Windows, but not yet 3.0; and
>certainly not the Web.
>A 20-year-metric would put "vintage" at 1984 -- the Mac's debut, etc.

Gee, sort of like "oldies" and "classic rock".  The nice thing about
an oldies station is you only need around 1,200 songs.  You want to
lock the group to pre-1985?  

>Otherwise, we'll soon be talking about Pentiums!

But why isn't that necessary?  I recently had a need to read a
5 1/4 disk.  A year or so ago, my main system's dual Teac 3 1/2 
and 5 1/4 had bitten the dust and I never replaced it.  I just 
added a spare 3 1/2.  I started searching through the other 
half-dozen older PCs I had in the computer museum (aka basement)...

I grew extremely frustrated as one after the other wouldn't
boot.  My efforts at preservation (that is, "save a pile" had 
failed.  I didn't have a pressing need to use one on a regular 
basis, so they deteriorated.

I was frustrated by other failed efforts: I'd saved a pile of
known-working 5 1/4s, but failed to remember to inventory whether
the PCs I'd saved (of various generations) had the right connector:
edge or not, and I had no idea where I'd stored the adapters,
so more frustration.

- John