Comment by y1n0
14 hours ago
> 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.
Why do you write it as “Apple forward slash forward slash E”?
If i remember correctly that Apple //E used that notation itself in its startup message and on various screens in AppleWorks.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_IIe
Check the logo on the picture on the right.
I suppose it just seems weird to write “//e” when it’s the “Apple two E” and II is the universally accepted Roman numeral notation for the number two.
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