This is a two part questions: Back in 1987, if word processing documents were kept on diskettes, the only way another department could have access to this information is to copy the information onto another diskette for another department to read. Correct? If that same department needed to access files that were created in 1987, what would be the best way to store or transfer data from the diskette to make it easy for researching information or to be able to access information at a later date?

First part is correct, unless the company had a network and stored the data at a central location. They probably wound not have had PCs, just terminals.

If you are talking about 3.5" floppies, the best way would be to download all the data onto a computer, then burn a CD or DVD. If you are talking about the 5.25" floppies, the same is true, but you are going to have a tough time finding a computer with a reader. You can find them on the internet, but there are almost none left on standard computers since the mid-90s. If you are talking about 10" floppies, the same is true, but when you go back that far, I would worry whether software is available to read the files once they are downloaded to the computer. Wordperfect 1.0 or something?

Such data was often archived to tape or magneto-optical (MO) discs for long term storage.

First part is correct, unless the company had a network and stored the data at a central location. They probably wound not have had PCs, just terminals.

If you are talking about 3.5" floppies, the best way would be to download all the data onto a computer, then burn a CD or DVD. If you are talking about the 5.25" floppies, the same is true, but you are going to have a tough time finding a computer with a reader. You can find them on the internet, but there are almost none left on standard computers since the mid-90s. If you are talking about 10" floppies, the same is true, but when you go back that far, I would worry whether software is available to read the files once they are downloaded to the computer. Wordperfect 1.0 or something?

You mentioned storing the data at a central location; however, the location of these two departments were in different buildings. So, it seems like each department had their own computer and were not networked. Please explain the difference between PCs and terminals.

Yes, I am talking about 3.5 floppies. Another person mentioned something about magnetic type of tapes. What are your thoughts on that?

Such data was often archived to tape or magneto-optical (MO) discs for long term storage.

Can you please explain this process of both archived to tape or magneto-optical discs for long term storage. If a company had two departments in different building, what is the best way for keeping this type of information available to both areas?

Last first... the best way to share is through a network.

The data is a long string of 1s and 0s. One can store that string in a number of ways. In the old days (remember the movies from the 50s/60s), there was a reel to reel tape running in the back ground with very large computer equipment in the picture? That was one of the first ways to store data. Many other devices came after it. The latest is DVD. Lots of 1' and 0s stored on a DVD disk.

A PC is a stand along computer on your desk (or lap) that can do everything by itself. A terminal is a device that allows one to link to a single computer at another location. Normally, it is little more than a monitor (TV) and a keyboard.

If 3.5" floppies are the media, then you need to get them, copy the information onto a PC and then copy that information to a currently supported media...like a CD. The reason I suggest coping the data to a PC, is that it will take many 3.5" floppies to fill one CD.

Can you please explain this process of both archived to tape or magneto-optical discs for long term storage. If a company had two departments in different building, what is the best way for keeping this type of information available to both areas?

In '87, I copied data from an individual PC to a QIC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter_inch_cartridge) internal tape drive through the use of backup software that came with the drive. These tapes were then stored in a central location or vault for safekeeping. I had several sets of tapes that were rotated daily or weekly depending on how valuable the data was or how often it changed.

I don't have any direct experience with MO drives (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magneto-optical_drive) as they were too expensive for what we needed. I imagine the backup process was similar to tape.

We also sent files between physically distanced buildings via modem over a telephone line. The whole process was automated via a batch file to occur late at night. We also sent files manually on-demand if we needed to sychronize the data at each location. I would have used this method for your two building scenario.