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How to write in Cuneiform

(www.openculture.com)
100 points PaulHoule | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.503s | source
1. EvanAnderson ◴[] No.45534239[source]
Back in the days when a wide variety of removable digital media flourished (floppy disks, various flavors of tapes, ZIP and JAZ drives, Syquest and Bernoulli cartridges, mag-op WORM, etc) a friend and I joked about how we needed a "Cuneiform drive" to write to and bake sheets of clay because, compared to all the storage formats we were using, Cuneiform actually held up over time.
replies(2): >>45535804 #>>45538844 #
2. jrapdx3 ◴[] No.45535804[source]
Yes indeed, holding up over time is not characteristic of digital technologies. To be sure I owned all of the "ancient" storage formats you mention, and down in the dark corner of my basement some of the old denizens still abide if not actually used. From time to time it's painfully evident that optical drives have all but disappeared too. We're all writing in electronic sand, endurance of our messages, ideas and creativity seems hardly a high priority.
3. itsnowandnever ◴[] No.45538844[source]
I think about this when it comes to the internet and AI all the time. all of this knowledge we have access to required a very complex global supply chain and surplus of people with specific technical skills to maintain. if the USA has any major disruptive events - natural disasters, political instability, etc - the burning of the Library of Alexandria will pale in comparison