I am reminded that in any information technology as the media changes from papertape, to Hollorith card decks, from 9 track tape to DLT Tape or from any media containing vital information.
It’s important to maintain legacy hardware to prevent the loss of vital data as NASA has discovered.
A lot of the remaining data (more than 19 years of it) were stored on old 7- and 9-track magnetic tapes needed to be saved and converted to modern media.
I was reminded of this as my wife had me checking for dublicate VHS movies against the current selection of DVD’s this weekend 😉