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"E-Books or Traditional Text?"

Started 6/15/2007 by admin in Gadgets Forum      (1 posts)  
1

5/15/2000 (11:33 pm) by admin Staff    

admin
(24314 Posts)

Sooner or later every written word will be recorded in digital format.
I am wondering if this is a good thing? Years ago people wrote on many
things, from stone, to hides of animals and now paper, which became the
standard. We know what people wrote on because we found these items
many years later. Most of These items lasted the test of time in some
of the worst conditions. We only had to translate the language of the
specific people to understand what was written.

My questions are:

In 200 years from now will we be able to read what was written today?

Is there a archival system in place to keep every thing upto date for the written word?

If every thing was in digital format, In 200 years will we be able to decode the
format it was written in today?

If every thing was digital and the power went out how can we read the documents?

Will the digital format last the test of time as did stone, hide and paper?

Say in 200 years we do not end up like Star Trek and go back to medival times, wouldn't
plain old paper with symbols that maybe could be translated, be better to learn from
the past then some weird looking shiny disk?
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