[Coco] 30 years...time flies

[Bill Gunshannon]

________________________________________
From: Coco [coco-bounces at maltedmedia.com] on behalf of Bill Loguidice [bill at armchairarcade.com]
Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2017 10:16 PM
To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts
Subject: Re: [Coco] 30 years...time flies

I second that. Almost all of my original floppies for various systems from
30+ years ago are still readable and I've done nothing special to store
them. Considering all of the doom and gloom predictions about bit rot and
even other things like internal chips degrading within a few decades, I
think overall those of us still into this type of vintage technology have
made out all right. About the only consistent degradations I'd say are to
the yellowing of light colored plastics and capacitors drying out.

____________________________________

Well, I have seen bitrot.  More in EPROMs than floppies, though.  Among floppies
it is HD 5.25's that seem to go bad the most.  I have also seen 8" shed their oxide
(but only Tandy brabded ones!!)  But most 8" and 5.25" just seem to last.  I am
currently making copies of all my old TRS-80 Model 3 floppies and all of them so
far are fine.  Of course, all my COCO disks are newer and work fine.

bill