If you’ve got a VHS tape that you can’t play, or a floppy disc that you can’t read – you’ve officially entered the digital dark ages. Remember WordStar for word processing in the 1980’s? Many of us remember using WordPerfect and Lotus 123. But do you have these applications in your work place now? Information stored in these formats can no longer be accessed (or at least, with much difficulty) and because of this is now lost. Are there any guarantees that Microsoft Word or cloud based software will be “readable” in 50 years’ time or will the file formats be obsolete?
The “digital dark ages” is a trendy term that draws a parallel between the lack of written literature and contemporary writing in the early Middle Ages, after the fall of the Roman Empire around the 5th and 6th centuries, and the precariousness of digital information in the 21st century.
It’s such a worrying situation that Vint Cerf (Father of the Internet and Google Vice President) has begun warning businesses to protect themselves against it.
Cerf says that if we don’t find a solution, our 21st century will be an information “black hole” for future generations.
Wanganui District Council is aware of the issue and has specialist staff already addressing how we store and archive important information.
The problem is that anything on computers – photos, documents, presentations, software, video games- is all just data. People look at photos and don’t realise that without the software to decode it- those images don’t exist. As technology advances various methods of accessing data may be lost.
In the age of the Internet, Facebook and other social media- it’s hard to imagine that future generations may not be able to access data about us, and – like the Middle Ages – they may not know much about us.
For businesses and councils, where some information needs to stored and be able to be accessed forever, it’s a worrying thought that in 50 years’ time, we can’t access anything we’re storing today. But is it a real problem or just digital doom and gloom?
Next week – Is the digital dark ages real and is there a solution?
indeed, I well remember WordStar, and have a number of files encoded in WordStar format. I intend to write a format converter for WordStar “one day”. I recently converted a set of audiotapes to MP3. They dated from the 1990s. I was somewhat dismayed to find that one of them was almost inaudible. I look forward to your next article. I think it is a real problem – if you’re not sufficiently prepared to meet the challenge systematically. I believe most are not, and that this could remain the “norm”.