One can extend Jim Crank's argument about his 100-year-old cylinder
record and 1927 film track both being analogue and still working after
all these years.  Surely the best archival medium for digital data
is a length of paper with holes punched into it?  I operate my pianos
with 100-year-old paper and my organettes with 120-year-old paper and
cardboard.  They are as good as the day they were made.

Having to re-record digital data every five years is problematical in
the extreme, if only due to the multiple change of archival system during
a long period and also the multiple change of ownership of those data.

The use of MIDI and other such systems, when they arrive, is an
essential part of our hobby in that they permit the (temporary) storage
of data and the recutting of music rolls, but the prime archival medium
is the original paper roll.  I accept that a 100-year-old paper roll
may be a bit tatty after that time but it will still be able to be
read for copying for many years to come.  Any modern roll cutter would
be well advised to retain a hard copy archive of his 'punch for punch'
rolls which will last another 100 plus years, ready for the next person
to copy.  By the time this new archive master is copied again the
digital software equivalent will be on its 20th generation and who
knows what will have happened in that time.  I would rather rely on
a hardware archive.

After all the recent discussion on MMD about this issue I can only
conclude that the purists have got it right.  Use paper to play your
instruments and retain a hardware archive.

Best wishes from England, where the paper doesn't degrade and MIDI is
used as a tool to support the glories of the past rather than replace
them.

Nicholas Simons