*** Copyright c 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1995 by Nicholas Johnson. Conditions: This material is copyright by Nicholas Johnson. However, permission is hereby granted by him to download, copy and distribute the text to others if (1) the text is not altered, and (2) there is no charge to the recipient, and (3) this copyright notice and conditions are attached. It is a copyright violation to distribute this material altered, or without the copyright notice and conditions attached, or to use the material in any way for which remuneration is received without the prior permission of Nicholas Johnson. Contact: 1035393@mcimail.com; Box 1876 Iowa City IA 52244; 319-337-5555. Anyone using this material should also be aware that, as a syndicated column, copyright may also have been retained by the syndication services. During the 1982-86 period of publication syndicators included: The Iowa City Press-Citizen, Gannett Corporation, Register and Tribune Syndicate, Cowles Syndicate, and the King Features Syndicate. *** Lost History The new information society may, ironically, end up with less information, and society, than previous civilizations. How can high tech possibly leave us with less history than before? By changing faster than we can save it. Some of the earliest human communication is still with us. There are 30,000-year-old cave paintings, as meaningful as the photographs in this week's news weeklies. There are pictographs on 6000-year-old clay tablets, and the origins of our alphabet from 3500 years ago, which students of the language can interpret. Gutenberg's 500-year-old Bibles are still perfectly readable. A magnetic disk that holds 300 pages of text, or even 20,000 pages, can perform functions of which Gutenberg could not even dream. But as an historical record is it a step forward or backward? A network president once told me President Kennedy's 1961 inaugural address had been erased from the videotape. Abraham Lincoln's 1861 inaugural has yet to be erased. The advances in computer science put virtually every other industry to shame. It is said if the automobile industry had done as well we could all be driving $2.85 Rolls Royces that got one million miles to the gallon. But what of the facts put into those 20 to 30-year-old dinosaur computers? The Census Bureau has data that cannot be read by any currently available computer. In the past five years we've seen computers, indeed entire computer companies, come and go. Storage tapes and disks have changed size, storage capability, and formats. Original equipment, even replacement parts, are nonexistent. My personal computer records go back less than 10 years. Yet they are probably in a half-dozen different forms. When I was a boy a neighbor had a wire recorder he and my parents used at parties. The tape recorders we have today are a vast improvement. But where is the equipment, and maintenance personnel, to play back those historic records? The Library of Congress has old Ediphone recordings for which machines are difficult or impossible to find and keep operating. Who can knock the sound quality of digital audio disk players? It's an electronic wonder. But do we really want to lose all the musical heritage on 78, 45, 33-1/3 disks, 8-track tapes and cassettes? Books can be useful when hundreds of years old. Motion picture film turns to dust before 100 years are out. Long before that, videotape starts resembling peanut butter. I've watched videotape go from two-inch to one-inch to 3/4-inch, to 1/2-inch to a 8 mm version since leaving the Federal Communications Commission. There's Beta and VHS. If you're lucky and your videotaped family records don't disintegrate, what are the odds your descendants will have the equipment to play them back 20, not to mention 200, years from now? Fortunately for future historians, the so-called "paperless society" is using more paper not less. For it is the print that will survive, not the electronic records. [July 22, 1985; Cowles August 19, 1985; ICPC September 16, 1985] END OF FILE