Compressors, DSP s, samplers, MIDI equipment and hard disk recorders may all be useful. You may yet get some very oddball source material so having access to slide and movie film transcription services or equipment might be helpful from time to time. Basically, gather any and all media related equipment you get the opportunity to get hold of. Hiring expensive equipment may be an option but if you need it for more than about 6 months, you will be better off buying it. Don t forget backup facilities.
Tape cartridges are good for capacity but poor for access.
I use 1.3 Gbyte MO cartridges for most of my backups these days. They are generally big enough to hold all the working data for a modestly sized project. Each side is roughly the capacity of a CD-ROM so they are useful medium to use for building a beta version of the products. Check out the whole list of Cliff's pithy tips for Web developers . Inc. All Rights Reserved.