> Someone needs to get into this archive and copy these to more durable media NOW.
This is a problem archivist are having right now with data from even 10 years ago. 100 year old books and nitrite films just need a stable, cool, dry environment. Have you seen the hoops people jump through to get an old Apple floppy read? It's a race to copy the data to the current storage format before the last machine stops working.
That's why Piracy has actually some very positive effects in terms of keeping working copies ALIVE many years after the software/companies/machines are gone and dead. Look at the Amiga ADF archive (most of it is made of illegal copies), most of it would have been lost if no one did crack the games in the first place.
This is a problem archivist are having right now with data from even 10 years ago. 100 year old books and nitrite films just need a stable, cool, dry environment. Have you seen the hoops people jump through to get an old Apple floppy read? It's a race to copy the data to the current storage format before the last machine stops working.