social.noyu.me

dear gen z: there's this cool thing called a “compact disc” or “cd”. it's like vinyl but smaller and with literally perfect quality sound, better than any streaming service. you buy an “album” on “cd” and then you can listen to it forever, or turn it into an “mp3” [1/2]

dear gen z, continued: an “mp3” is a kind of “file”. a “file” is a uh… oh fuck how do i explain this concept to a generation that has only known smartphone operating systems and cloud storage and wouldn't know how to protect their own data if their life depended on it. uhhh

ok so in the old days it was possible to “download” things like music or word documents to a “storage medium”, such as a “usb stick” or a “hard disk”. the data would physically exist on the device rather than in the cloud, so it didn't require a subscription to continue existing

it also gave you this thing called “privacy” from like, everyone. even the cops. they have to physically break into your home or pay some dubious israeli company to hack your device if they wanted to get access to these “files” on your device. they can't just ask google/apple

anyway so if you buy music on a cd you can turn it into mp3 files. or you can buy mp3 files directly. and then you can store them on a storage medium. or indeed even in the cloud. and then you still have access to them in a few years even if the music company went bankrupt!!!

i know there are illegal ways to preserve old media, but we're gonna be in a terrible place if that's all we have, especially considering the trajectory of copyright enforcement in the west, and the next generation not knowing what a file, much less a bittorrent client is

@hikari optical disks rot so maybe not them

@bob @hikari rot in just a few years too

like, recordable and rewritable ones, easily faster than flash

@bob @hikari
Good point
I feel that a Read-only version of SD cards would work perfectly

@AlanyG21 @bob flash memory is probably worse than optical media for long-term storage. decades ago, mask ROMs were a thing, but as it is, Switch carts will probably stop working within our lifetimes

@hikari @AlanyG21 mask rom is still a thing

@bob @hikari @AlanyG21 weren't switch cartridges using it, too?

@bob @hikari @AlanyG21 ah no they're using a type of flash memory it seems

@whitequark @bob @AlanyG21 yeah the thing is that while you can do mask ROM, flash has been cheaper for the last two decades so I don't think many people do. in a few decades, people will notice that 1990's devices still work but 2000's ones don't

@hikari @bob @AlanyG21 personally I'm still unconvinced this will come down to "not flash" vs "flash" as opposed to "flash or not flash" vs "flash that was fucked up"

@hikari @bob @AlanyG21 'cause like, there are other aging effects in semiconductors too, right? it's not limited to flash, you have to do studies for electromigration too, and at least you can easily dump flash and replace it with something else if you care as an archivist

having to find NOS CPUs is so much worse

@whitequark @bob @AlanyG21 yeah that's fair. for switch carts there's multiple grades of flash, at least two, with lower production runs getting the worse kind apparently

@hikari @whitequark @bob @AlanyG21 the dsi is notorious for having such low flash endurance that they started failing years ago

@hikari @whitequark @bob @AlanyG21 the homebrew community recommends not running anything official or unofficial from the internal storage whenever possible

@hikari @whitequark @bob @AlanyG21 can we not engrave crystals with data for extended storage? We’re gonna need a lot of crystal fast. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/5D_optical_data_storage

@hikari @whitequark @bob @AlanyG21 or nanostructured glass since I didn’t read that far 😅

@whitequark @bob @hikari @AlanyG21 IIRC, I read that games that were expected to sell in high volumes were done with mask roms, but everything else just used flash, as it was more economical.

@jernej__s @whitequark @hikari @AlanyG21 I've seen cheap gameboy carts that even used battery-backed ram

@jernej__s @whitequark @hikari @AlanyG21 those were shenzen specials, though, I don't think nintendo did that

@bob @jernej__s @hikari @AlanyG21 for *code*?!

@whitequark @jernej__s @hikari @AlanyG21 code and data, yep

@bob @jernej__s @hikari @AlanyG21 that's cursed

@bob @whitequark @hikari @AlanyG21 How long did those last‽

@hikari @bob
1st. I didn't expect you answering, I love the existence of TouchHLE and I hope it's development gets bigger and better
2nd. Right, but as how Bob said, Mask ROMs still exist, so they could make something like a special SD-based card format which is read-only and made with Mask ROMs

@hikari @AlanyG21 @bob I'd have to find the relevant Life After People episode, but- assuming I remember the episode correctly- I remember hearing that CD-ROMs (not the R/RW crap) should last ~200 years.

@cr1901 @AlanyG21 @bob some factories' output had serious problems with disc rot on a much shorter timescale than that, but I imagine those problems got fixed eventually

@hikari I never stopped buying them

@hikari in Jan my kids and I went on a roadtrip. They got bored of the music. My car doesn't have Bluetooth, or USB ports, it has a 6x CD stacker. This meant buying CDs to use in the stacker. No one in Nelson sells new CDs (didn't have time before leaving to hunt 2nd hand stores). Nearest shop was Christchurch. First thing we did when we arrived in Chch, even before a toilet stop? Buying CDs.

My kids loved picking two albums each.

@hikari let's add GD-ROMs to the list, i want to properly back up Dreamcast games