In most cases history is now recorded in a tangible form, something solid or touchable. For ancient history it might be images preserved on pottery or carved into stone and progressing with time to images and text recorded on linen and paper. Today computers and the internet come into play thus allowing much of the world’s history to be stored in a digital format and accessible to almost anyone that would like to look.

As technology changes each generation updates their storage media, while it seems like a sound idea, it can cause its own problems as records need to be reformatted for access with the technology in current use.

For perspective think about the videos your parents, grandparents even great grandparents would have taken at family gatherings; a windup film camera recording onto 8 millimetre film, the reel would be sent away to be processed and returned showing a slightly grainy, usually black and white video of a special occasion. (Christmas time videos always have a traditional up and down the Christmas tree shot.)

To view this scene one required a projector, a spare reel and darkened room. As time moved forward film cameras improved and started using video tape, requiring a VCR to play, then moving to digital storage in the form of CDs and DVDs, requiring their own specific playing device.

In our current modern form, video can be recorded digitally in high definition glory using a cellphone and stored in a variety of different digital video formats to our computers and the Cloud. The........

© Peterborough Examiner