[X-Unix] So what is a dmg file?

[Joe Block]

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On Jan 22, 2004, at 10:12 AM, Doug McNutt wrote:

> .dmg  .smi   are two Apple disk image formats that are rather new.
>
> How long will they be supported? Is it reasonable to use them for such 
> things as archiving on a CD-ROM? Some of the older floppy image files 
> that I once made can be unpacked only if I crank up my Mac IIFX for 
> the job. Remember DropDisk?

This is a valid concern for long term backup. If you're concerned about 
long-term (10 year plus), go with tar files on a stock iso 9660 CD - as 
long as there's a unix and/or its relatives, there will be tar, and the 
ability to mount iso format CDs.

> For the last few years I have limited myself to ASCII text and things 
> like tab separated columns instead of .xls for data. Now with UTF-8, 
> 16, and 32 I'm worried about that.
>
> Format-creep seems to be a modern buzzword. Is something like .dmg, 
> with a promise from Apple, the answer? Don't we owe paleontologists of 
> CY 3000 the equivalent of stone tablets?


That said, there are physical format issues to deal with as well - I 
wish that I'd made the time to transfer all my floppies onto CD-R way 
back when - the critical files got moved, but I still have a couple of 
office boxes full of floppies sitting in storage that are either 
already unreadable or going to be. I'm pretty sure there isn't any 
useful data on them (I haven't missed the files in the last 6 years) 
but who knows?

I'll take a few weekends to transfer my backup CDs to DVD after I get 
my next Powerbook - I've decided that I don't want any potentially 
useful data on media that's more than one hardware generation old, even 
if it is a big pain to do the actual transfer every other machine.  At 
least it gets less hassle every iteration - I only have  a few dozen 
CDs I care about, compared to the several thousand floppies, dozens of 
SyQuest carts, hundred + Zip disks and etc. that I had to weed through 
to get the CDs.

Fortunately I'm enough of a hardware pack rat that I keep old machines 
rather than junking them - I still have a machine with a working floppy 
drive, just not the time to feed hundreds of floppies through it and 
determine which files are dupes and which are actual good data.

jpb
- -- 
Joe Block <jpb at ApesSeekingKnowledge.net>

Virgule gazed across the vast, cold, steel expanse past his inquisitor 
to witness the full consequence of his previous decision - feral, 
withered children, in tattered, filthy garments, toiled mindlessly at 
his command in a single chamber which reeked of oil and burning animal 
flesh - his time had come to deliver the final instruction; "Yes, I 
would like fries with that."
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