Interesting Bit Rot Site..

[bjybjy]

Dunno if any of you have seen this or not, but I thought it was pretty interesting. Cheers!

 

http://sf.victoly.com/Bit-Rot/

 

Tad

[Raijin Z]

Nifty. Guess I have two reasons to avoid learning to make homebrewn NES and Atari games.

[rasty]

Well.. an average CD (or even worse, CDR) won't last much longer anyway

(actually, they could last waaay less than EPROMs)

 

Rasty.-

[Dolt]

In the early days--say the first 7 years or so of CD--there were a number of problems with silver CDs, but by and large, they will now last a pretty long time. Some early CDs suffered from fogging, where over time, the plastic on the bottom side got, well, foggy-looking--like the mirror in your bathroom after you take a shower. Eventually they realized that it was caused by the inks they were printing with on the top of the disc--during manufacturing, after the tops were printed, the discs would get put on a spindle, and the vapors of the ink would get into the plastic of the disc above it. Over time, you got fog for no apparent reason. Once they changed inks across the industry, the problem went away. Related problems included CD bottoms that went brown or black (usually caused by ink and/or cheap plastic laquer or metal, to my understanding).

 

The other biggie back then was crystalizing, where the bottom plastic got all looking like rock salt--I've never understood how that happened, and I worked in the industry for a while.

 

These days, however, providing that you don't use a CD for a pitbull chew toy, it should last long past the point where you'd want to play it (or be able to find a working CD player).

 

As for CDRs, same deal--early ones are more likely to be unstable, but ones you buy these days should last you for a long time to come. I don't necessarily trust the claims that they'll last 100 years or more, but I'll be dead then, so it's someone else's problem.

 

Clive

[rasty]

Thanks Dolt for the in depth explanation, it's nice to hear from someone who has some actual data!

 

Obviously most of my non-working CDs are pretty old ones, and since the new ones are.. well, new, it will surely be a while before they stop working! So this should back your words

 

On the other hand, it's still too early to have proof about exactly how long a "modern" cd will last, but I believe your words.

Anyway CDs are still pretty fragile when compared to a cart (EPROM): in the flea market I usually visit, 99% of the CDs have sever scratches and I wouldn't bet a cent they're working..!

 

So my point is simply that Raijin Z should not worry too much about BitRotting Homebrews, since afterall EPROMs are lasting more than most stuff around nowdays

 

Rasty.-

[Lost Monkey]

These days, however, providing that you don't use a CD for a pitbull chew toy, it should last long past the point where you'd want to play it (or be able to find a working CD player).  

 

As for CDRs, same deal--early ones are more likely to be unstable, but ones you buy these days should last you for a long time to come.  

 

Clive

 

I am finding that several of the music CDs I made just a couple of years ago are becoming unplayable.. with no scratches or fingerprints... they just won't be read anymore. I wouldn't be surprised if the quality of the media was to blame though.

[Lemmi]

here is a good site to read about the testing of CDRs and difference in quality of brands

 

CDR Quality

[Inky]

Thanks Dolt for the in depth explanation, it's nice to hear from someone who has some actual data!

 

At first I thought you were insulting the guy! Then I looked and saw that was his username.

[rasty]

Hi!

 

Thanks Dolt for the in depth explanation, it's nice to hear from someone who has some actual data!

 

At first I thought you were insulting the guy! Then I looked and saw that was his username.

Sure I didn't mean to insult! Mostly because I have no idea what his handle means?!

 

Bye!

Rasty.-

[Dolt]

a high-falutin' word for "idiot," so that fits me perfectly as I'm a high-falutin' idiot.

Clive

[Albert]

While I agree that prototypes sitting on an EPROM should certainly be dumped if they haven't already been (and especially if it's the only known copy), I've seen a lot of 20 year old prototypes that are just fine. It'll be interesting to see what the average life of these EPROMs turns out to be, as these chips get older. This does have interesting implications for homebrew games, since those are generally burned onto EPROMs themselves. Given that 25 years have already passed since the introduction of the 2600, I don't think it's unreasonable to say that people will still be playing these games in another 25.

 

..Al