unknown works by Andy Warhol have been recovered from 30-year old Amiga disks

[Homer J Simpson]

This is pretty cool I had an Amiga 1000. It was my third computer after a Vic 20 then a C64.

Had to have been no later than 1987.

I remember the Amiga World magazines featuring Warhol.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-27141201

[nihilism]

Interesting that they had to "reverse engineer" the format to recover the images. I guess it raises the topic of "lost technology". I guess with the computing and electronics industries moving forward so quickly and things becoming obsolete it's bound to happen.
Although one would think the easier option would be to create a copy of the disks and boot up an Amiga to open the files.

[scientist]

What I want to know is how whatever civilization there is left in 3622 A.D. is going to understand our culture if 99% of our knowledge and information is stored on a very fragile system made of weightless electrons flying around. The Romans had scrolls and tablets, we've only got hard drives with data in a silly format and screens that only work when powered. 

[calexanian]

What I want to know is how whatever civilization there is left in 3622 A.D. is going to understand our culture if 99% of our knowledge and information is stored on a very fragile system made of weightless electrons flying around. The Romans had scrolls and tablets, we've only got hard drives with data in a silly format and screens that only work when powered.

They will look at our land fills and still orbiting space junk. Not to mention the garbage and sunken ships at the bottom of the oceans, tree ring data, large mining and earth works, and dentist office periodicals that are there now, will still be there.

[VK3DRB]

What I want to know is how whatever civilization there is left in 3622 A.D. is going to understand our culture if 99% of our knowledge and information is stored on a very fragile system made of weightless electrons flying around. The Romans had scrolls and tablets, we've only got hard drives with data in a silly format and screens that only work when powered.

Very good question.

We could find a cave and chip away on the walls and then seal the cave up. Written on the walls would be the lyrics to the Justin Beiber Christmas Album. Then future civilisations will know why were doomed.

Seriously though it is a problem. Electronic media is nowhere near as reliable as stone tablets as far as read only memory goes.

[Kjelt]

They make their own theories and stories as we do and did in the past. If you look how romans view was on the greeks and the 18th century scientists view on the romans you know their going to be wrong anyway 
Besides some statues will remain, let's just make sure we don't make statues of our famous bankers 

I heard countries that store enriched nuclear waste that needs to cooldown another 40000 years or so put them in mountains and use a mathematical language on the doors to warn people in the future since they have no idea what language will be spoken in 10000+ years. Don't know if this is true but it makes sense.

[tom66]

One of the things of note is that since MPEG-2 TV transmissions (DVB-T) are so well compressed they look essentially like random noise, any civilisation (earth-bound or not) that retrieves such data will likely think it is just random noise rather than an actual video sequence.

[jpb]

One answer to long term storage is to return to the stone age!

M-disc claim that their "stone" DVDs will last a 1000 years:

http://www.mdisc.com/what-is-mdisc/

Of course, in a 1000 years there may be no DVD readers around to read them especially if Apple gets its way and kills off the optical drive.

[Homer J Simpson]

This is some long reading but if you are interested here is a site that has some good history on the Amiga, how it was developed and the people involved.

Amiga was an amazing machine for its time.

Jay Miner who is considered the "father" of the machine was also the creator of the Atari 2600 and the Atari 400/800 computers.

http://arstechnica.com/series/history-of-the-amiga/

The first Amiga prototype done on breadboards. 7200 chips

[Homer J Simpson]

Here is a video from 1985.

The premier of the Amiga.

[VK3DRB]

They make their own theories and stories as we do and did in the past. If you look how romans view was on the greeks and the 18th century scientists view on the romans you know their going to be wrong anyway 
Besides some statues will remain, let's just make sure we don't make statues of our famous bankers 

I heard countries that store enriched nuclear waste that needs to cooldown another 40000 years or so put them in mountains and use a mathematical language on the doors to warn people in the future since they have no idea what language will be spoken in 10000+ years. Don't know if this is true but it makes sense.

Chernobyl in 10000 years - who will understand the languages on the warning signs? Besides, the radioactivity would have eaten away the sarcophagus well before then.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_Nuclear_Power_Plant_sarcophagus

Seems like as a whole we will one day be remembered as a reckless and stupid civilisation.

[Kjelt]

The first Amiga prototype done on breadboards. 7200 chips

OMG 4 big breadboards which will become one dil ic in the final product. That was the time before FPGA's