Last week, I shared with you an interview transcript from one of my CBS Sunday Morning stories. It reminded me of another great interview I’ve been meaning to share. This one was for my ‘Sunday Morning story about data rot, which aired a few weeks ago (http://bit.ly/oFrX). Meet Dag Spicer, curator of the Computer History Museum in Silicon Valley. It’s an amazing place, as you’ll see in this edited transcript of our tour and chat. David Pogue: What is data rot? Dag Spicer: Data rot refers mainly to problems with the medium on which information is stored. Over time, things like temperature, humidity, exposure to light, being stored not-very-good locations like moldy basements, make this information very difficult to read. The second aspect of data rot is actually finding the machines to read them. And that is a real problem. If you think of the 8-track tape player, for example, basically the only way you can find 8-track cartridges is in a flea market or a garage sale. The problem, strangely enough, is not so bad on the older stuff, but quite bad on the more recent stuff. So we can read tapes here at […]