Subject: hmm

From: [email-masked] (Lars Aronsson)
Date: 4 Aug 93 21:31:55 GMT

Hi all,

My name is Lars Aronsson.  I'm posting the following article for a
friend who has an e-mail account at AppleLink, but no access to USENET
news.  If you have comments, don't "follow up", and don't "reply" to
me, but be sure "reply" to him.  There is a Reply-To line in the
header above, so all should be fine.  The article's author, Karl-Erik
Tallmo, claims to have written and published Sweden's first electronic
novel.  I have taken the liberty to cut his lines to 70 characters, as
they were originally longer than that.

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Hello.
 
I am a writer and a journalist, but also - among other things - a
graphic designer and HyperCard developer, living in Stockholm,
Sweden.
 
I am now doing research for a newspaper article about how the computer
industry and the international library community are preparing for the
electronic revolution within publishing. We have heard that CD-ROMs
may disintegrate within 50 or 100 years and things like that. But this
is not my point here.
 
What about the compatibility backwards? We are now creating huge
databases (on CD-ROMs or networks), and a new wave of hyper literature
(facts and fiction) is at hand. And the point that is stressed by so
many is that this is the beginning of a new democratic era, when it
comes to distribution of information.
 
But what happens with all that in 50 years? If the James Joyce of the
21st century publishes a multimedia novel with the help of a certain
version of Micromind Director, a certain version of QuickTime and a
certain version of Mac-OS 7.x - will this be possible to run on a
computer in the year 2093?
 
Storing on magnetic and/or optic media saves much space compared to
storing piles of paper and rows of books, we are told. But what if the
libraries of the future have to be museums too - with hundreds of
antique computers set up in hundreds of different configurations?
 
Someone at Apple here in Sweden said to me: There will always be
people who can decipher old files - if we can interpret the Dead Sea
Scrolls today, computer files will not be any problem.
 
But, again, this is not my point. Of course some future hacker with an
inclination towards cyber-archaeology gladly will spend some weeks
reconstructing old Mac files. But what about the easy access for
everybody?  What about the unlimited knowledge of the world only a
mouseclick away (this, as a matter of fact, was a dream H.G. Wells had
and wrote about as early as in the 30's!!!).
 
I know there is a lot being done today when it comes to standards
between different computer platforms, countries, etc. But does anyone
think of standardization over time, over decades, centuries?
 
Isn't the risk that PR-related material, presentations and other more
short-lived stuff can "afford" to use the latest technology, but
anyone who produces literary or educational material meant to last
some decades, has to limit him/herself to some sort of lowest common
denominator when it comes to technological complexity.
 
Shouldn't we set up at least some guide lines for minimizing the risk
that, for example, future font resources will be completely inadequate
for showing our old texts to the future, even in a jagged fashion? Not
to speak of problems connected with future types of (ultra fast)
processors.
 
Dare we really believe that libraries in the future will be equipped
with super-computers that can emulate or simulate various sorts of
antique hardware and software? Actually, shouldn't this emulation or
simulation process of the future start here and now - with discussions
and plans and guide lines for developers of authoring tools, the
invention of special "embedded reconstructional code sets" maybe and
.....?
 
So far, I have talked to local representatives of IBM, Apple and
Microsoft here in Sweden, and nobody seems to think that this could
become a real problem.  Computer files have the best standardization
there is, someone said, it's all zeros and ones. On the other hand,
representatives from the academic world and people at the National
Library in Sweden think I have a point here.
 
Anybody who wishes to comment on this matters, please contact me on
e-mail [email-masked] (Internet's gateway to AppleLink).

Regards,
 
Karl-Erik Tallmo
 
Nisus Publishers
Stockholm, Sweden
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--
Lars Aronsson, Lysator, Linkoping University, Linkoping, Sweden