If yours is a typical company, you carefully saved all of the essential files of your business every year. And then you filed them away in a filing cabinet or a vault for use if something happened that you needed them again. And it is only when you actually need them again that you find out that your files are actually GONE! There is no way you can retrieve them.
How could this have happened? The files are still there. The problem is that the computer industry ran away from your files. You no longer have any equipment that can read them. The upgrades that were done on your computers moved them away from what was used to make the files.
Robinson's Lost File Rule #3: IF YOU CAN'T READ IT, IT'S GONE.
The first inkling of this kind of trouble was when the US Census Bureau almost lost all of the data collected in the 1960 census. The government data-processing people sold the 9-track computer reel tape drives as scrap. Only after the drives were gone did someone in the Census bureau realize that all of the census data for 1960 was stored on tapes that only those drives could read. They finally found a computer equipment collector who could read and print the data.
Another inkling of this kind of trouble was when NASA found out that they could no longer buy the 80386 microprocessor chip needed in the Space Shuttle. NASA had rightly required that the circuitry, operating system, and software in the shuttles must never change. They used MSDOS 3.2. The problem is that Microsoft and Intel made the Space Shuttle obsolete by discontinuing everything in the shuttle. They wanted to make NASA buy new equipment and software. But it would not be safe for NASA to change everything. Instead, they bought up existing stocks of chips and software.
WAYS YOUR FILES CAN BE GONE:
Almost all early computer file formats were proprietary and can't be read anywhere else.
Microsoft and Intel worked to sell new computers and software, not to preserve old software.
They deliberately discontinued products and support for old systems to make you buy new ones.
Microsoft changed the operating system for security and speed reasons. But those changes made old software fail to run,
Microsoft usually stopped supporting old formats and foreign formats after two upgrades of its software.
Many software companies went out of business, leaving their former customers hanging with no remedy.
Most tape drives, floppy disk drives, and old flash cards chips are no longer available.
You may open the file folders from years ago to find nothing but blank paper. EPA banned permanent metallic inks.
You may open a file folder and find nothing but crumbs and fragments of paper. EPA requires recyclable paper.
Electrolytic power supply capacitors, BIOS batteries, and rubber belts fail with age.
Software won't work, connectors have no place to go, and control cards don't fit the new bus. Replacing an entire lab can cost millions.
Often the changes make it impossible to use the methods the device or software needed to do the job.
Having to redevelop products every three years depletes any company's resources.
Old files may have images that cannot be reproduced now.
WHO IS TO BLAME FOR THIS MESS?
The Democrats worship artists and creators of intellectual property, so they gave them special rights to control ownership of software and computers through copyrights and patents.
Instead of preserving file formats so computer users could use their old files. Microsoft was greedy. They changed the operating system so computer users would have to buy a new version of the operating system every few years. Also, they deprecated (made unusable) old file formats. They wanted to MAKE MONEY. They DON'T CARE what happens to your old files.
Instead of preserving file and hardware formats so computer users could use their old files. Intel was greedy. They changed the hardware chips so the operating system had to be changed. So computer users would have to buy a new computer to use the new version of the operating system every few years. Also, they deprecated (made unusable) old bus connectors and card formats so old equipment could not be used. They wanted to MAKE MONEY. They DON'T CARE what happens to your old equipment or files.
They knew this was happening and did nothing to stop it. They knew that the IRS computers were obsolete and failing, but they did not pass any laws to keep the needed products (Pentium and Windows XP) in production. They should have passed laws requiring that computer hardware and operating systems must never change or that old versions must always be available. But they were so googoo-eyed for getting new progress in computing that they lost everything old.
WHAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE ABOUT IT?