The Future of Digital Standards

I see more tech related questions having to do with old formats working with new ones. A typical computer user rarely uses certain files and five years down the road they expect them to work with current software. This is not limited to file formats but hardware peripherals and storage devices as well. A common issue is related to ripping LP disks to digital tracks, obtaining information from tape or floppy storage mediums and opening text documents from years ago with a newer version or different version of word processors. I was speaking to a friend about how to help users as we upgrade and getting them to adopt standards as they come out and he and I had different opinions but I will offer my thoughts on the subject.

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Apple and Dell have stopped shipping computers with floppies. You can purchase a floppy drive that connects via USB or install it yourself internally in computers that allow it. Most people use floppy drives to pull data from the disks instead of put data on them. The issue is, most data was placed on Floppies pre-1998 and this data was created using applications no longer in development. A regular user will open a Microsoft Works document from 1996 in MS Office 2004 and it will work but sometimes characters do not print properly and very often the user gets a �File Corrupted� message. This could be a software issue or that the floppy disk is very old and may be been damaged over time from dust or storage conditions. Pro users can either get an old copy of the software to run on their dust collecting Windows 98 computer or will open the document as a straight text document and extract the text. Hopefully it was just a text document and not a spreadsheet or PowerPoint because then you will have real problems with that file. Archived emails, Quicken resource data and more is going to give you hell when opening on a Windows xp or Mac OS 10 machine.
One thing that has stayed backwards compatible since 1998 is media software. Most files you downloaded or created before the turn of the century have a media player that will open and play them, assuming the data did not get corrupted over time. MIDI, JPG, PNG, TIFF, MPG, MP3, AIFF, MOV, and even the long forgotten mOOv format are still used and easy to open on current software. I think this is due to the graphics industry holding on to standards for so long. The new standards are PNG, PSD, MP4, MPEG2, PDF and doc but the adoption rate is slow due to budget in the graphics industry at the corporate level. Most design firms I have visited are still running 400-933 MHZ G4s running Mac OS 9.2 or are stuck at 10.2 Jaguar due to budgets.
I have users ask me how to move songs from cassettes and LP disks to MP3 and I just ask, �Why bother?� There is a way to do it but the process is so difficult, I suggest getting re-releases of the audio or keeping an old player around for when you feel like remembering old times. This begs the question if we will still have these problems in another 10 years. To give a glimpse, in ten years we will be at 10 gigahertz+, the standard for desktops will be over 1 terabyte in the low end sector, the optical storage format will be something even beyond blue-ray and peripherals will use an iteration of Firewire / USB but VGA will be long gone and DVI will be the only connection for external monitors. Heck, Ethernet may not even exist unless you buy a card for it and wireless will be included on every motherboard. Video cards will be non-existent other than what is on your motherboard. There will be no need for a video card upgrade. This said, would I be able to use my current keyboard or monitor with my computer via a USB to �whatevertheycallit� converter? Will I be able to open files that I created back in 2005 and using Apple�s Spotlight technology can I open an Address Book Vcard in the current version of address book without a hitch?
I feel the computer market is designed to force users to upgrade to the latest. Without this, most technology companies would be out of business including our beloved Apple computer. If I open an Office 1997 file in MS Office 2004, there is a menu that lets me decide how Office should decode this file assuming I know what app created it. We may be on a different level in terms of storage. ATA and optical storage for mass date may be a thing of the past but I want to plug in an external HD (firewire) to my current setup and move 20 gigabytes of music to it. Will Firewire resemble how we look at Serial or NAT storage today? Will it be more feasible to just re download all of that music in a flash than try to get the connections to move it over to my computer? I have to ask these questions but someone has to. I am creating some important documents today and when the change occurs and I find an old backup of some photos I took 10 years ago and want to open those, I don�t want to be scouring Amazon for a USB CD drive to open those photos. Even then, will I have to open them on an old iBook then move them to my new computer view Airport and waste more time? I hope someone has the answers.

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