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I have CD's from that period - some fine as, others disc rot most evident. Even had rot in gold layered ones (few VCD's I had). Gets down to manufacturing quality and in just the same way silicon chips are made, not all chips are equal and work perfect forever. Same with media.

Tape has done well, however when you look at how it was used and how it is used today. The density of data is much tighter today than the 80's era. So tolerance of errors was greater and more forgiving as data would be stored in a larger area, so a few atoms going adrift won't stand out, when you get into density when a few atoms is your data, errors are statistically more prone to happen.




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