What will be the Rosetta Stone of technology? Already hard to find VCRs, cassette or 8-track players. Early 16mm videotapes (that have some of President Eisenhower’s speeches, e.g.,) seem all but forgotten.
When you add in the planned obsolescence, I wonder what is the fate of knowledge.
Richard Dawkins imagined a future where smart machines had completely replaced humans, who had died out.
Then when the machines started wondering what their origin was, they couldn't figure it out.
(He used this as an analogy for us humans not being able to figure out our missing link is. Whatever the link between dead matter and self-replicating life in the way past, it seems to be gone now. At least we haven't discovered it.)
Everything is now digital.
The concept I mention was supposedly to be a bit of a joke.
Please see that film if you like Homer’s odyssey.
In the last ten or so years, digital photography has all but eliminated the commonplace use of film-based cameras, and most of the photos ever taken date from this lovely digital era. Moving pictures of historic events go back to the funeral of Queen Victoria, at least, barely more than a century. The preservation of older source material will only work out due to the use of digital technology and the basically trivial process of its duplication and backup.