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Comment by portman | Hacker News Reader

I still keep around a 286 that is 25 years old and it's fine -- are you suggesting that it will cease to function sometime in the next 25 years?

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But your 286 is already exceptional, how many other computers of that vintage are still functional today? This is analogous to particle decay in a radioactive material, you can't predict accurately when any given atom of uranium will decay, but you can describe the rate of decay by the time at which close to half the particles in the sample will have decayed. The half-life of the typical consumer grade PC is ten years or so, from what I've seen (this is an estimate, but this would be a good research project for someone), but just because a model of a given computer still works after 20 years, doesn't mean it will work in another five.

If the half life of a modern bit of electronics is 10 years, that implies that in 50 years 1/32 of currently manufactured drives will still be around. I'd reckon the number would be a lot smaller, but given the terrific quantity of CD drives that exist out in the world right now, I think the chances of one still existing is pretty good.

Even if it didn't, if you compare the costs of many other storage techniques, they're probably equivalent to jerry-rigging a CD player to read back these disks. The difference is the cost is shifted to the reading and not the storage.

Your main risk is the shonky assumptions of the "archival" CD manufacturer. Not that I know what those shonky assumptions are, but I have a vivid memory of the hosts of Tomorrow's World demonstrating the durability of CDs by spreading jam on one, then wiping it off.

Yes.

Also I'd claim that your 286 has higher build quality and it's less sensitive than modern computers.

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