Physical File Formats

File Formats

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Physical File Formats

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
• Computer
• Control voltage
• Core rope memory
• Flash memory
  • Secure Digital (SD, MiniSD, MicroSD)
  • Thumb drive
• Game cartridges
• Keyless entry systems
• Networked devices
• Quantum computer
• Radio-frequency identification (RFID)
• Random Access Memory (RAM)
• Read Only Memory (ROM chip)
• SIM card
• Smart card
  • Contactless smart card
• Transponder
• Smartphone
• Smartwatch
• Video game memory card

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
• Tefifon
• Television Electronic Disc
• Talking tape

Point based media

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

Other

• Mechanical computer

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
• DOTS
• Drexon Laser Card
• Optical mark recognition
• Phonautogram (phonautograph tracing)
• Printer tracking dots
• Watermark (physical)

Misc/Other

• Human computer
• Synthesizer patch

And there are the ones that don't actually exist, but have been written about in ficiton...

• Fictional physical formats

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
• The Death of the Age of Stuff (comic)
• 240-year-old programmable automaton
• Computer Hardware Chart
• The ‘Knowledge Box’: Picture an Early, Trippy, Analog Wikipedia in 3-D
• Multimeters considered helpful (for servicing electronics)
• Relics of Technology photo series
• Museum of Obsolete Media
• Using technology to make old songs sing again
• Liquid hard drive could store 1TB data in a tablespoon
• Mediapedia - The Mediapedia is prototype web-based resource intended to enable the physical identification of various media carrier types.
• This album comes on 12 'dead' formats including MiniDisc
• The evolution of physical music formats: An interactive timeline
• The Utopia Of Records: Why Sound Archiving Is Important
• Digitize the Planet
• Physicists achieve atomic data storage