Useful life of CDROM

[John Noyes]

It is noice to see someone being so optimistic about the life of CD's.
Obviously the proof of the pudding will be in the eating but I will not be
around long enough to find out. However, Chris raises another interesting
point about the availability of names published on CDrom under the new code.
Paraphrasing the new code, it says that a new taxonomic name published on a
CDrom will be available if on the CDrom it is stated that five copies of the
CDrom are deposited in five different public institutions and the CDrom is
freely available and all other conditions of availability are met. To my way
of thinking the decision to accept availability of names published on CDrom
was taken almost unilaterally by the Commission without adequate
consultation with the taxonomic community. The availability of names
published on CDrom was not included on drafts of the code that were
circulated prior to its publication although it was mentioned on their web
site, but that seems to have been missed by most taxonomists. I wonder what
the general view is out there. My feeling is that it is a retrograde step
because firstly this will make it easier for incompetent or malicious
taxonomists to publish names freely at almost no cost without any "quality"
control and secondly because of doubts that exist about the longevity of
CD's and the capability of being able to read them.

It is impossible to do anything now about changing this in the Code because
the new revised edition will be published in a week or two (although I am
keeping my fingers crossed that it has been withdrawn at the last minute),
but it would be interesting to see what sort of feeling there is out there
about this important issue which I think should have been discussed more
widely by the taxonomic community before inclusion in the new Code.

John

At 11:20 15/07/99 -0400, you wrote:
>Yes, they MAY BE problems in reading CDROMs in a 100 years or so. But I
suspect a longer and more useful life. The key factor in increasing density
(amount of information) stored on a CD is the width of the read/write laser.
The new format on the block is now DVD, it uses a read/write laser of about
half the width of the CDROM one. BUT the key point is a narrower beam can
also read a larger "hole." it is only a matter of programming the driver,
etc.  Hence, DVD drives can easily read old CDROMs. IBM has already
announced the next generation, which uses a read/write beam of about 1/100th
of the DVD beam width, but again backward compatibility will be maintained.
So, I am not worried about whether my CDROMs will be readable in 20 years or
so. They will clearly outlive me.
>
>But to be on the safe side, I still publish new species in printed serials,
etc. But I will continuely port my data to the newest versions of the
appropriate database, WWW server, Disk format, etc.
>
>The comment about Windows 3.0 is interesting. Yes, old Windows programs
frequently do not run under the new Windows. BUT old MS-DOS program run very
well under the newer Windows. I still use WordPerfect 5.1 in a DOS windows
on my new Windows NT 4 OS!
>
>
>
>F. Christian Thompson
>Systematic Entomology Lab., USDA
>Smithsonian Institution
>Washington, D. C. 20560
>(202) 382-1800 voice
>(202) 786-9422 FAX
>cthompso at sel.barc.usda.gov
John S. Noyes, Entomology Department, The Natural History Museum,
South Kensington, London, SW7 5BD, UK
Tel. (From July 5 1999): +44 (0)207-942-5594  Fax: +44 (0)207-942-5229]

INTERNET: jsn at NHM.ac.uk

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