Technology and collective amnesia
by Jack GrantInvestigators in Austria are stymied in part due to obsolete technology, the Commodore 64 computer used by the kidnapper of a young girl (the crime commenced in 1998) presents complications because the data transfer to a more modern system to do searches is problematic and will likely result in data loss.
In one of the books of the Foundation series (or possibly even as early as some of his Empire books, I don’t currently have the references available due to personal circumstances), Issac Asimov wrote of information loss due to obsolescence. We have been able to reconstruct much of our ancient history because the records of the time required no more than eyes and a knowledge of the language used to record the data to interpret them.
Our reliance on technology for record-keeping, using methods that become obsolete and impossible to read without the right equipment beyond the human eye, are not as permanent as carvings in stone or even ink upon paper, and inevitably result in this memory-loss through neglect. The difficulties of the authorities in Austria in reading data from a system that is a little over 20 years old is but a not-so-early warning of what Asimov predicted decades ago.
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By vw bug on 09.08.06 14:25
As one who still uses certain programs in straight DOS because keyboards are faster than mice, I can understand the paradox. Nevertheless, Commodore was an anomaly.
By Elliot Essman on 09.08.06 19:48