I have been using computers since 1990. During this 35 years time period, the advances in hardware, operating systems and software keeps it hard to maintain future proof and accessible file formats. Imagine you have a digital diary you kept on a proprietary XXX application which works on Windows 3.1, on a floppy disc, some 30 years ago... And you try to open this file now...
My own experiences taught me the future proof files should be:
- Non-proprietary
- Unencrypted
- Uncompressed
- Open Standard
- Common usage
File formats like these have been surviving the last 35 years:
- .TXT
- .JPG
- .PDF
- .HTML
- .CSV
- .ZIP
Needs a little update, but still usable:
The real problem is with the haardware side. Floppy disc -> CD -> DVD -> Blu-Ray -> USB -> HDD -> SDD -> Cloud ... With every widespread hardware storage you have to migrate all your data.
So, what file formats survived these years and will be Future, Long Term Accesible in your opinion?