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Since some of the solutions people are proposing assume you have a lot of space for storage, I'll assume that too.

1. Get a 9600 bps modem. Use it to encode your data, and record the output as an audio file.

2. Take this audio file, and split it up into 60 minute segments.

3. Record these 60 minute segments onto two-sided vinyl LPs, 30 minutes per side. This will take about a million LPs.

4. Print on acid-free paper, using ink that will survive 50 years too, instructions on how a 9600 bps modem works. Describe the encoding in detail, sufficient so that someone using the equivalent of MATLAB or Mathematica or something 50 years from now on the computers they will have then could easily write a program to decode a modem signal.

5. Also print and include instructions for making a record player. As with the modem, the important part is describing how the signal is encoded on the LP. They'll have no trouble building a record player 50 years from now. (Assuming they don't just photograph the LPs with the 3D terapixel camera on their iPhone 54, and then write an app to extract the signal from the photo...)

5. Store all of this somewhere. LPs will last 50 years easily in a typical office environment, so you probably don't have to resort to something like a hermetically sealed vault buried in an old salt mine or anything extreme like that.



They put ZX Spectrum loading sounds (kind of like a modem except totally audio), on this LP, XL1:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Shelley

It is software which, when loaded into the Speccy's audio In port, does funny lightshows in time to the album's songs.

BTW, the LP speed doesn't matter, the Speccy picks it up anyway.

Pretty innovative. And the best thing is you can now get the LP in a TAP-style emulator format! So it survived over 25 years.


Here's the catch: Transmitting 5TB at 9600bps takes exactly 132 years, 1 month, 14 days, 21 hours, 24 minutes and 27 seconds. So the time capsule would be opened before you're done loading it.


Get 300 modems, then. You will be done in less than six months.


Jesus, you'd struggle to get the data off those the day after you did it, nevermind in 50 years.


Nice idea. Probably no need for an actual modem in the encoding, I think that should be feasible with software nowadays?


It's nice to work with standard things when you're talking archive. A physical modem is a lot more standard than a custom one-of program.


I had the same question. Can someone explain?




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