I certainly don't know much in this area, but I stick by my original position 
that the consumer is ill-prepared to predict either the physical stability or 
the accessibility of computer storage media.

>>Rather than wire recorders, a better analogy might be LP's. Even as they 
got better and better, the basic idea of a flat, plastic disk with a bumpy 
groove scratched into the surface remained the standard for selling audio 
recordings. Even today, a decade after they became "obsolete," you can easily 
buy a turntable that will play everything from ancient 78's to 45 singles.<<

Well, not easily. A few months ago I spent a delightful morning with an old 
friend, an accomplished southern Appalachian fiddler (who by way of a day job 
is a PhD biochemist turned rural nurse-anesthetist - he knows more about 
anesthesia than anybody else I ever met) who collects old 78 rpm recordings 
of Appalachian music. He has a really heavy-duty 78 rpm player that must be 
able to vary the rpm between 72 and 80, and pick up vibrations that move the 
needle either up-and-down or side-to-side. Then there's the problem of 
getting phonograph needles, which I don't begin to understand. But that 
morning gave me some idea of what our present computer storage media will 
look like when my grandson is the age I am now (and I've been raised to the 
Lodge Eternal in the Heavens).

78 rpm audio technology, I should explain, became obsolete around 1948 with 
the introduction of 33 rpm long playing ("LP") records, though 78's continued 
to be manufactured for another ten years or so.

Bob Richmond
Samurai Pathologist
Knoxville TN