I have friends who work in the IT section for an under-resourced cultural institute focused on the preservation and recording of disappearing cultures and ethnic groups, including the preservation of speech and utterances in languages that now have no living native speakers. They discovered recently, to their alarm, that the only surviving copies of some recordings were now on old 3½ and 5¼ inch floppies that had somehow been stored without accurate cataloguing. They are struggling to find equipment that can 1) read the discs, 2) interface with the disc drives, 3) tell them what is actually on each disc and what file formats are in use (they have good guesses, but no certainty) and 4) find software that will be compatible with those formats.
They have neither the skills nor budget to do in-house nor outsourced forensics for this. At this point they don't even know what exactly might be lost to humanity's knowledge, and the descendents of these people, forever.
So, I probably shouldn't have been surprised, considering it's HN, but the number of people who reached out to me on this was surprising and touching. I think I've responded to everyone directly, my apologies if I missed you.
I'm glad to report that, since last I'd spoken to them about the problem, they've figured out what to do and consider the matter solved. The material is recovered, recatalogued, and in good order.
Thanks again everyone for the concern, interest, and offers! I know where to come if something like this comes up again!
They have neither the skills nor budget to do in-house nor outsourced forensics for this. At this point they don't even know what exactly might be lost to humanity's knowledge, and the descendents of these people, forever.