[Foundation-l] Long-term archiving of Wikimedia content

Tue May 5 04:02:02 UTC 2009

Samuel Klein wrote:
> They wouldn't take up proportionally more space in etching than they
> do on screen.  So an extra 10-20% overall.  They would probably make
> the process a bit more expensive, but still to this scale.  an
> illustrated encyclo may well be worth twice as much.
> 
> Let's see what the Rosetta folks have to say.   I can think of a lot
> of people, not least those who have one of the early Rosetta disks,
> who would love an  archival etched copy of Wikipedia + Commons thumbs,
> which might cover some of the early costs of trying this out.

I can tell you what the Rosetta folks would say: they would say that
they paid $125k to Norsam for 5 prototype discs, and that we are free
to do the same. Norsam have developed this technology at great cost
and expect a commercial return, regardless of who's paying them.

<http://www.internetnews.com/storage/article.php/3771051/Storage+That+Really+Lasts.htm>

Personally I think it would be a waste of general funds, since I don't
expect we'll see the end of civilisation any time in the next year or
two. Maybe if there was a directed grant, it would be appropriate. Or
we could have a small investment fund aimed at paying for such an
archive in 20 years or so, when the process will be cheaper.

By the way, it's FIB etching, not laser etching, and the discs are
nickel-coated silicon, not plain nickel.

-- Tim Starling