Thank the Long Now Foundation

The Encyclopedia Foundation wishes to draw your attention to the Ampex Company. In 1956 they came out with the first VCR for $50,000. It was too expensive for most people, and it was another nine years before Sony had one out for $1,000 in 1965. As the prices dropped, more people could afford to buy them, more people buying them allowed mass production and economies of scale, long and short they eventually went for about $25 new, and as for “used”, that was usually for free as people getting new ones would just give the old ones away.

And what does all that have to do with the Long Now Foundation, let alone explain why you should thank them?

Well, consider their project to archive knowledge, of which “languages” are the first knowledge they’ve chose. They have a Rosetta Disc project that has thousands of languages preserved on a 2.8 inch disc. That 2.8 inch disc has 13,500 pages of language information readable by a 1000x Optical Telescope – such that was available technologically in the 17th century!

Cost? $25,000.

It actually cost them far more, but that’s what the first one went for. And that is a shame, for it means that we at the Encyclopedia Foundation can’t afford to do what we want to do. Too expensive…okay, you see where we’re going!

It was too expensive, but that technology, which their interest helped develop and perfect, has created some markets. Diamond engraving and micro-engraving valuables with invisible identification numbers. And this is leading to thoughts of various groups and agencies archiving information for the long haul, readable with only an eye and a microscope, but able to be accessed by a computer that can scan it.

Which means – perhaps not in nine years, but sometime – that the price will drop. We go so far to say that we know it will. Same as the price of the VCR dropped.
Here’s the deal. We know it will drop in price as the technology to do this has enough applications that it will be popular to a staggeringly large number of agencies. True, this is not a product that every individual is going to want or need, not like the VCR was, so we do not expect it to drop to $25. But if you ever wondered in previous articles why we estimate the cost of making a metal plate at $1,000, now you know why we are confident saying that.

And we may get even luckier. The price will probably end up being a few hundred bucks, sooner rather than later. And if someone finds some app for it that the general populace finds faddish or cool, then it could drop down even more.

But just like you owe your past ability to purchase a VCR for $25 to the long range looking pioneers who paid $50,000 and $1,000 for theirs, so the Encyclopedia Foundation – and all of humanity that will benefit – owes thanks to those at the Long Now Foundation.

If you’d like to thank them, and help in your own way to reduce the cost of this data storage technology, then please go visit their site and become a member at their low monthly membership rate. Your great, great, great, great grandchildren will thank you!