From WNYC in New York, this is on the media.

I'm Brooke Gladstone.

And I'm Bob Garfield.

As we usher in this new year with champagne toasts and the clanging of pots and pans,

let's take a moment to remember a New Year's Eve that wasn't greeted quite as warmly.

It's 2 a.m. January 1st, year 2000. Powers out. It's pitch black. You need light.

If you planned ahead, you'll have one of these. Just wind it up. You'll have light and communication.

Call now and get the ultimate Y2K survival kit from BeCalm.com.

Of course, stocking up on canned food, water, and videotapes appears hilariously misguided in hindsight.

But then again, you never know. And so, for the remainder of this hour, we're engaging in some

chillingly informed speculation.

What would happen if we as a species lost access to our electronic records?

What if, either by the slow creep of technological obsolescence or sudden cosmic disaster,

we no longer could draw from the well of knowledge accrued through

the ages. What if we fell into a digital dark age? We do know that the March of Progress,

the steady extinction of audio cassettes and videotapes, floppy disks, and operating systems,

has already extinguished parts of your personal history

because you told us.

This is David Gable in New York City, and the loss that comes to mind is wondering why I ever got rid of that little tiny cassette that used to be inside

1980s phone answering machines because I kept it for a long time

after my boyfriend died of AIDS in 1988 and I kept the last message I had for him.

And it was not a particularly interesting message. It just was his voice. And I kept thinking, what's this

...