sam@warwick.UUCP (Jawed Ashraf (just call me Sam)) (06/18/86)
In article <6803@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP writes: >> For important matters, a mechanism could be implemented to allow users >> (or the system manager on their behalf) to request a copy of >> an expired article from a central archive to access a quote beyond the >> expiration date of that article... > >Who's going to maintain that archive? Please understand that this is *not* >a trivial undertaking. The accumulated archives of Usenet since we joined >it (quite early) total something like 1.2 gigabytes, and the rate of >accumulation is rising steadily. Nobody is going to keep that mass online, >and nobody is going to want to mount tapes for the sake of such requests. >Just keeping the last couple of months would suffice, but even that means >something like 100 megabytes of news. KEEP YOUR FINGER OFF THAT "n" KEY!!!!!!!!! OR ELSE!! I think that it is a trivial undertaking. I also think that it may be an important one. After all nobody junks paper published material on a world wide scale. Just for pure historical archiving out of interest purposes everything on the net should be archived. How?? you goggle. Well simple really. All you need is one of them there nifty "write once read many times" (WORM) optical disk drives. Looking at our copy of May 1986's "Systems", I see a 12" disk drive at around 11000 pounds (sorry America!) OEM price. Discs are 350 pounds each. Capacity is 1 gigabyte per side. Plenty really. Prices are bound to drop. Capacities may go up (particularly as 5.25" and 3" drives are very vague at the moment.) The only problem that seems to hold is a written disk is not guaranteed for more than 10 years. Big problem. This is only a problem with burnt in "pit" technology disks though, I think. 3M have a system of bubbles instead, which will probably last a lifetime or 3 *:-} Then of course there's erasable optical disks (what's the acronym?) They may be even better. These prices may seem large (they do to me) but as I say prices are bound to drop (low range of 4 figures within a few years), but there is nothing to stop the cost of one being shared if the people of Usenet et al want to be mean. Basically have people pay for access to the disk, either a license (if that's o.k. with the drive company), or on a per access basis. At least one per distribution area would be a good idea (na,usa,eunet whatever). That's for starters. Eventually it will be quite feasible for lots of sites to have archives. And who said that 1 gigabyte was too big?! There's even a system from Alcatel Thomson (via Thorn EMI it seems) of an optical disk jukebox. 2 drives, 100 disks. That's 2000G bytes with double sided disks. All at the not too unreasonable price of 100000 pounds (W/O disks) (if you're willing to be first! #B-) Flames accepted with interest. WORM technology seems perfect to me. -- Jawed Ashraf, | If you've ever wondered how, you get Computer Systems Engineering, | triangles from a cow, you need butter, milk University of Warwick. | and cheese, and an equilateral chainsaw. | | -- Half-Man Half-Biscuit