Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club! Hi Greg, I have some XT-computers, about 20 years old, and the BIOS on UV-EPROM is still readable without faults. The life-time of the data was 'then' garanteed for 'at least' 10 years, but these IC's are still in a good shape. Regards, Bastiaan On Tue, 16 Dec 2008 16:19:15 +0930, Greg Mayman wrote: ;Text preceeding quote o > Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club! > On Mon, 15 Dec 2008 20:23:31 -0500, L.D. Best wrote: >> Arachne at FreeLists---The Arachne Fan Club! >> Plug-in disk HDDs aren't something I would necessarily trust ... if >> you're not using it, if platters aren't turning, what's to prevent >> 'bleed' and consequential data corruption? > OTOH if the platters ARE turning, what's to prevent bleed? Unless you > mean over a period of decades.... >> What I'm looking at is the new external flash-based HDDs ... that's for >> down the road, however. <G> > Do you mean the ubiquitous "memory sticks"? But how long can they store > data without errors? > The only "no moving parts" devices I know that really were permanent > were the fusible link PROMs, but they were mostly limited to less than 1 > Kb of data. > UV-EPROMs rarely lasted more than about 10 years, EEPROMs somewhat less. > I don't know what technology the memory sticks use, but I doubt that > they would last for more than a few years unless stored in a specially > cool environment. > Go placidly amid the noise and haste, > and remember what peace there may be in silence. > "Desiderata", Max Ehrmann, copyright 1952. > ,-./\ > / \ From Greg Mayman, in beautiful Adelaide, South Australia > \_,-*_/ "Queen City of The South" 35d 01'44"S 138d 32'13"E > v > Arachne at FreeLists > -- Arachne, The Premier GPL Web Browser/Suite for DOS -- ================================================================= This mail is composed and sent by the Arachne Browser for DOS. This is Arachne A4D version... ================================================================= -- Arachne;A4e;1q:20 Arachne at FreeLists -- Arachne, The Premier GPL Web Browser/Suite for DOS --