2010s → present
The ecosystem disappears before the media
LTO and IBM 3592 show that magnetic tape is not synonymous with obsolete storage. The preservation problem is concentrated in older generations whose transports, interfaces and software environments disappear while cartridges remain. A modern drive is rarely a universal reader.
MEDIA OUTLIVES SYSTEMS.
KNOWLEDGE BRIDGES THE GAP.
KNOWLEDGE BRIDGES THE GAP.
TAPE
DRIVES
INTERFACES
SOFTWARE
ECOSYSTEMS
PRESERVATION
DRIVES
INTERFACES
SOFTWARE
ECOSYSTEMS
PRESERVATION
rare branches
The branches history tends to forget
Storage evolution was full of side roads. Some were technically elegant, some commercially short-lived, and some survived only in specialist installations. They matter because an archive may contain exactly one of them.
OBSCURE FORMATS.
REAL-WORLD STORIES.
REAL-WORLD STORIES.
Continuous loopMicrodrive · Stringy Floppy · Wafadrive
Machine-specific floppyApple FileWare · Amiga · Acorn · Atari · CP/M
Specialist tapeDTF · DST · ADR · S-AIT · SD-3
Institutional opticalWORM · MO · UDO · PD · DVD-RAM
Found something from this history?
Send photographs of the medium, every label and part number, and anything known about the original computer or software.