Jasen Betts wrote in a message to Greg Mayman:

 RJT>> That's one of the reasons I have a scanner,  and a cd burner.
 RJT>> :-)

 GM> That's fine if you have the data sheets in the first place.

 GM> I have a collection of old data sheets going back about 45 years,
 GM> all of them still 100% readable, and several data books that are
 GM> even older, also quite readable.

 GM> Can anyone claim that sort of life for a CD-ROM?

 GM> Or will anyone still have a CD-ROM drive in 40 years? And the
 GM> software to read the data?

 JB> I've still got a couple of working 5.25" floppy drives...  but I
 JB> don't think I'll still have them in 10 years time.

360k or 1.2M?  :-)  I have both here,  as well as a pair of 8" drives,
 and a spare pair,  just in case...

 JB> DVD drives can read CDs but after DVDs are obsolete there's a good
 JB> chance media will change shape.

Change shape?  To what?

I've often thought it odd that we have round optical media that spin,  and
have to get moved past a (relatively) stationary head.  Years ago I wanted
to take a small CRT and move 35mm film in front of it,  scanning a single
line for writing and a whole frame for reading back the developed film. 
Would've been one heck of an interesting experiment in fabrication (stepper
motor drive,  light-tight box,  etc.) but the fact that I'd need to handle
film like that,  get it developed,  and then figure out a way to handle the
resulting processed negative pushed it just beyond the point where I wanted
to make the attempt at it (though I still do have a couple of 3" CRTs
in storage :-).

Maybe an LCD panel would work?

I wonder what sort of resolution you could get with binary data on
fine-grained B&W film?

I'll bet scanning a strip would be able to be done *much* faster than
spinning a disc of any sort...

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