ArticlesM looks grim, in his wood-panelled London office.
“Bond, this is serious. SPECTRE have one of our key scientists kidnapped. They want ten of our secret programs mailed to them from around the world. For each program that fails to arrive, they will chop off one of his fingers, before he is released. He needs those fingers, dammit.
“Your job will be to send one of those files; nine other agents will also be doing the same task. There is no time to lose; you will only have one opportunity to save those files to media, and post them to the address given. There is no time to try again on a different computer; it has to work first time.
“You’d better speak to Q.”
Q looks grim, as lab technicians explode costumed dummies with tricked-out staplers.
“Bond. We are a little short on budget for this project. All I can give you is a modern home computer, and a single unit of removable media. If you can’t get it to work first time, well I am afraid our scientist will never be able to play the scales on the flute again.”
So, my question is: how many fingers should the scientist expect to keep?
In other words, what percentage of the time does a simple experiment of writing some simple data to removable media, mailing it across the world, and reading it successfully on another machine, first time with no fuss succeed?
I think the answer to the question depends on what year the scenario occurs.
| Year | Media | Expected Fingers Remaining |
|---|---|---|
| 1983 | Cassette Tape | 4 |
| 1988 | 5.25″ Floppy | 6 |
| 1993 | 3.5″ Floppy | 9 |
| 1998 | CD | 9.8 |
| 2008 | DVD | 4 |
What’s wrong with this picture?
How did the industry forget that the big advance with 3.5″ disks wasn’t the capacity but the reliability. (Unless, based on my experience, an old Macintosh was involved.)
Why do I throw away more DVDs than I successfully burn? Why do I have to trade tips on where to buy DVDs that work? Why do I have to learn (and explain) the difference between DVD+R and DVD-R?
Comment by Richard Atkins on August 1, 2008
There’s another dimension where DVDs do a little better: reading the same data years later. Assuming you got the data onto the media ok and you’re not spilling drinks on each of these things, I’d guess the fingers-kept would look something like this:
Cassette Tape: 7
5.25″ Floppy: 1
3.5″ Floppy: 4
CD: 9.5
DVD: 9.5
I’m not giving optical media a perfect score here because of the layer separation issues I’ve seen (funky discolouration of the data surface), which seems to eventually make the disc unreadable, plus some cellophane envelopes seem to weld to the title surface, destroying the disc when you prise the two apart again.
Also: thanks to the low data density of tape, they seem to work pretty well even after being chewed up by a tape player, but you’ve got to start with a pretty high quality metal oxide tape for it to last a long time.
Disclaimer: all figures given here are truthy. You need to find real stats if you want to cite this stuff.
Comment by Chris on August 1, 2008
I find the same thing, but I’d estimate that my DVD burns are 80% reliable, and CDs are 95% or better. I recall 3.5″ disk reliability going downhill toward the twilight of their mainstream use – probably because the average age of disk drive increased. I recently tried to read some fresh-written new floppy disks on the three floppy drives in my house and found that only one of them would read the disk.
BTW: If this is this a plot by M to punish the scientist for putting his grubby fingerprints all over M’s DVD collection, then it’s dead clever. SPECTRE had better start with the finger that always presses too hard and breaks all the centre thingamajigs on the cases.
Comment by Sunny Kalsi on August 1, 2008
I don’t believe your truthy values. I read somewhere that CDs, if left outside, would “fade” quite quickly, making them unreadable. A bunch of tests were done, and you could actually see them become clear over time. http://www.cdfreaks.com/news/CD-Rs-lifetime-not-as-long-as-you-think.html is the best thing I can find for now…
Comment by configurator on August 1, 2008
Regarding the burn success rate, I completely agree.
Regarding the truthy data about lifetimes, I completely disagree; it depends on where you are in the world.
Where I live, in the great {undisclosed location}, there is high humidity throughout the year, the summer is very hot and the winter is quite cold.
I’ve yet to see a cd or dvd last more than three or four years, and I take *good* care of my media. They’re always carefully held, careflly put in their boxes, carefully put in storage and carefully taken out a few years later only to find out they don’t work.
I’ve had a cd implode in my optical drive once.
And another time, the part of the disc with the data disintegrated into metallic looking dust and I was left with a nearly blank see-through plastic disc.
So, no, I don’t believe they last that long.
Comment by Alastair on August 2, 2008
I think you’ll find Q’s opening line is generally “Now pay attention, 007”.