IP: Digital Domesday Book lasts 15 years not 1000

[Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Adam Aston <adam_aston@businessweek.com>
Organization: BusinessWeek / The McGraw-hill Company
Date: Mon, 04 Mar 2002 12:26:16 -0500
To: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
Subject: Digital Domesday Book lasts 15 years not 1000

dave, remarkable example of the fragility of digital media and digital
culture... - adam

---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Sunday, March 03, 2002, 2:57 PM -0500
To: BOOK_ARTS-L@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Digital Domesday Book lasts 15 years not 1000

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Digital Domesday Book lasts 15 years not 1000

Robin McKie and Vanessa Thorpe
Sunday March 3, 2002
The Observer

It was meant to be a showcase for Britain's electronic prowess - a
computer-based, multimedia version of the Domesday Book. But 16 years
after it was created, the =A32.5 million BBC Domesday Project has
achieved an unexpected and unwelcome status: it is now unreadable.

The special computers developed to play the 12in video discs of text,
photographs, maps and archive footage of British life are - quite
simply - obsolete.

As a result, no one can access the reams of project information -
equivalent to several sets of encyclopaedias - that were assembled
about the state of the nation in 1986. By contrast, the original
Domesday Book - an inventory of eleventh-century England compiled in
1086 by Norman monks - is in fine condition in the Public Record
Office, Kew, and can be accessed by anyone who can read and has the
right credentials.




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