The Silicon Jungle by David H. Rothman

expensive your backups become—discouraging you from making them. Find a balance between cost and convenience that suits your security needs. Timing—that’s the secret to saving your electronic diamonds or rhinestones on your floppies, whatever the quality. In the past, working just with paper, timing meant to me nothing more than the Rothman Chronological Method. The newer the document on my desk, the closer it would be to the top of the file. It wasn’t the most efficient way. But I rarely lost material, just temporarily misplaced it. Computerizing, however, I worried. “Floppies are treacherous,” my friend Michael Canyes said like a John Bircher discussing commies. “They always trick you when you least expect it.” “Thanks,” I said. “The way you’re encouraging me to computerize, I’m beginning to think you actually want to sabotage me. Help me lose my manuscripts and all that.” “Just back up your copy page or so,” Michael said. “Isn’t that a lot of trouble?” “Maybe twenty seconds. Then you’re protected if the power fails. Or maybe your computer. You can’t afford to have your material stored just in on your chip. It’s just temporary. You cut off the current a fraction of a second, it’ll forget everything. You’ve got to get your stuff on the disk ASAP.” All right, I supposed my creative juices wouldn’t dry up during the half minute the disk drive was whirring. “The ‘Save’ command on WordStar is =KS=,” Michael said. “Just hold down the ‘Control’ button on your computer while you’re doing that. Then you’ll hear a whir and the disk drive clicking away.” Somehow my Kaypro was coming across as an animal to be fed during training; the clicking could be the sound of a dog chomping up candied biscuits after a successful lesson. “You’re also going to make backup disks,” Michael said. “Sort of like electronic carbon paper.” “I don’t have time,” I said. “You’ll find time. You can do it in just a minute or so. You can even use a scratch disk to be safe.” “What’s a scratch disk?” “Suppose the power failed or something went wrong with your machine while you were making your copy,” Michael said. “Then you could be up the creek without a paddle. You might lose both the original and the copy.” “So?” “That’s why you have a scratch disk. You copy on it first. If something goes haywire, then you’re still safe. Because, during your last work session, you made a backup.” “Theoretically,” I said. “And if something goes wrong while you’re recording on your permanent backup disk, then you can just work from the scratch disk. It’s just what it sounds, sort of a scratch pad.” “Oh, I’ll use paper, thank you,” I persisted. “The best backup yet. It’ll be years before it falls apart. And who knows? Maybe by then the Library of Congress will be preserving my manuscripts.” Michael withheld a guffaw. “Well, I can type a mean streak on my Selectric,” I said. “I can get my stuff back into the computer in no time.” Always the patient teacher, Michael didn’t argue. Presumably, however, another writer nowadays would have agreed with Michael immediately. His editors had been looking forward to having the printer set type from the disk he’d submit with the paper version of his manuscript—a crowded floppy storing every single byte from his toil. Then the editors could bring the book out six or eight weeks faster, with the disk in the printer’s hands. But in this unlucky man’s case the disk never reached the printer’s hungry computer—he hadn’t, alas, made an electronic copy. A case of hubris if ever there was one. You might avoid such traumas by following the Rothman Chronological Method II (RCM II), a lazy man’s form of data security for those with fast printers: