> disks have a natural expiration date and it's not long
You really have no idea what you are talking about. It's normal for floppies, especially 3.5" to last decades just sitting on a shelf. I've got 5.25" floppies from 1984, and they boot just fine on my old apple //e.
42 years in my parent's dank midwest basement.
Of course some will last longer. It's not a cliff, just "not recommended to use for longer than...". But a lot depends on the conditions of storage, how much usage they got, etc. Manufacturers gave them 10-20 years normally, which puts almost all of them in the not recommended territory.
The fact people have old working floppies doesn't change the fact that degradation happens.
{"deleted":true,"id":50401950,"parent":50400846,"time":1794029764,"type":"comment"}
Why do you write it as “Apple forward slash forward slash E”?
loading story #50401665
loading story #50401951