Got it in one. Also, if HN39 is correct that they had to go to an outside agency to extract the data in a format they could use (apparently hard copy in this case), then they would not have been able to easily rework it into a digital format again. I reiterate - in computing/information science terms the state of the art in 1988 would by today's standards be considered not just incredibly primitive, but also awkward to use, time-consuming and expensive. Particularly of note is that not only did microcomputer paradigms differ from mainframe/minicomputers in general, but even among microcomputers there was no universal standard for representing data - the norm was a mishmash of proprietary formats, all of them incompatible with each other. Transferring data was theoretically possible, but every byte would have to be individually hand-checked to ensure the data was identical at both ends.
It is therefore entirely understandable that the BEA simply tacked a copy of the raw output to the report as an appendix. I'd also be inclined to suggest that because the output is clearly raw data dumped to hard copy, it rather undermines the "tampered data" allegations. Ironically, according to Airbus's response it was the outside investigator's lack of experience with this new data format that caused him to misinterpret the synchronisation.
Read it all .. it begs the question of who authorized and certified such a system .. which is one of the elements that can (should) participate in the improvement of safety ... how to record music can have multiple incompatible formats .. but in this case it is not for fun it is for safety
These competent authorities ... are they were really competent at the time?
Certified a system that has no common standards .. the results become uncertain because of the difficulty to analyze .. is this serious?