The BBC built a time capsule nobody could read

A closer look

In 1986, the BBC launched a massively ambitious project to digitally archive the entirety of British life, compiling photos, maps, and text onto advanced interactive LaserDiscs to create a time capsule lasting a thousand years. The tragic irony? They used incredibly proprietary, niche hardware. By the early 2000s, the original 11th-century Domesday Book was still perfectly readable, while the BBC's futuristic million-pound digital disks were utterly obsolete and impossible to access.