It was meant to be a showcase for Britain’s electronic prowess—a computer-based, multimedia version of the Domesday Book. But 16 years after it was created the ¢G2.5 million BBC Domesday Project has achieved an unexpected and unwelcome status: it is now unreadable. The 12 inch discs of text, photographs, maps and archive footage of British life are—quite simply—obsolete. “It is ironic, but the 15-year-old version is unreadable, while the ancient one is still perfectly usable,” said computer expert Paul Wheatley. “We’re lucky Shakespeare didn’t write on an old PC.”
