Physical File Formats

Revision as of 05:10, 22 December 2013

Like the rest, this will be split down further.

One of the first steps in preserving data held on physical media is the correct identification of the medium. See Identifying Physical Media for more information on this.

Traditional

• Clay tablets
• Clothing
• Construction toys
• Paper
• Papyrus
• Parchment
• Quipu
• Stone carving

Capacitive

• Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED)
• Video High Density (VHD)

Electronical

• Cables and connectors
• Core rope memory
• Flash memory
  • Thumb drive
• Game cartridges
• Keyless entry systems
• Networked devices
• Quantum computer
• Random Access Memory (RAM)
• Read Only Memory (ROM chip)
• Secure Digital (SD, MiniSD, MicroSD)
• SIM card
• Smart card
  • Contactless smart card
• Transponder

Magnetic

• Disk cartridge
• Drum memory
• Floppy disk
• Hard disk
• Magnetic stripe card
• Magnetic tape (audio cassettes, video cassettes, reel-to-reel, etc.)
• Magneto-optical drive
• Wire recording

Mechanical

Groove media

• Dictabelt
• Gramophone record
• Phonograph cylinder
• Television Electronic Disc
• Talking tape

Point based media

• Music box
• Piano Rolls
• Punched card
• Punched tape

Optical

Disc media

• Magneto-optical drive
• Optical Discs (CD, DVD, BluRay, etc.)

Photography and Projection

• Holography
• Microform
• Photographic film
• Photographic paper
• Photographic plate
• Transparency (projection)
• X-ray

Other

• Bar codes
• Drexon Laser Card
• Optical mark recognition
• Phonautogram (phonautograph tracing)

External links

• We ❤ Retro Media: Vinyl, VHS, Tapes & Film (Video)
• Some videodisc formats from before you thought such a thing existed
• Gallery: Digitizing the past and present at the Library of Congress
• 240-year-old programmable automaton