VCF suggestions... (film vs digital)

[Tony Duell]

> 
> > BTW what are you doing to preserve your VHS tapes?  Remember VHS
> > equipment are disappearing fast from the retail market
> 
> What's really sad is I know many people who had their Super-8 movie
> film transferred to VHS in the 90's and threw away the originals.

It botheres me when people scan their photos/negatives _and don't keep 
the originals_. Photographic film is more likely to be 'readable' in the 
future than a CD-ROM or DVD. 

Before some idiot starts a flamewar, note that I am not saying there's 
anything wrong with scanning photographs to make it easier to view them 
now (some people prefer to look at a computer screen than set up a 
projector, apparently), or to send them round the world, or to digitally 
manipulate them, or... Just that if you do this, you should keep the 
originals too.

> 
> Now most Super-8 film was not stored in exactly "archival" condition
> but I'm 100% sure that it would've outlived the VHS tape.  And
> Super-8 projectors, while not the simplest devices in the world,
> are certainly maintainable.

I have a pretty simple amateur 8mm projector (I think it's a Eumig), and 
I suspect any of the parts likely to wear or fail could be made in a home 
workshop. Well, OK, the bulb couldn't but then bulbs are not that hard to 
obtain...

> 
> Yeah, I know, I'm OT in the "computer hardware sense" but I think
> the same principles may in some cases be applicable to computer media.

The obvious on-topic example is that if you transfer your MainDEC tapes 
or Altair paper tape BASIC, or... to PC disk to make them easier to load 
into the classic machine, or to put on bitsavers, or... then you should 
still keep the original papepr tape. Paper tape readers are a lot easier 
to maintain than PCs...

-tony