BardBun wrote on 2021-01-26, 21:01:
I hate how slowly CDs and Diskettes as well as some DVDs and other old media are starting to die due to deterioration.
And how you gotta create image files of them to keep them preserved but then get cucked by the copy protection x.x
I see it as an opportunity to digitize the copy protection if possible. I have played Freddy Pharkas on my vintage stuff using Adobe PDF for the Modern Day book of Health and Hygene in Windows 3.1.
For me the below is more a minor annoyance with a pleasing side effect.
My OLD trend that bugs me is the flame retardant plastic that Nintendo, Apple, NEC, Sony, and a few others were using at the time that some element either evaporates or degrades and causes it to crumble. I'hve had an old Mac, an old MacBook, a Super Nintendo, and of course all my NEC versa suffer from it for the same reason. I read somewhere it was actually flame "retardant"/"repellant" plastic or something like that, that was a Japanese standard at the time - and one of the chemicals either evaporates or degrades. The Minor annoyance is the thing crumbles like a cookie if you mishandle it in any way past about 15-20 years old. The thing is, that chemical that evaporates or degrades MIGHT be the very thing that gives it that preferred property back int he 90's - from fixing multiple NEC Versa with Baking Soda and Cyanoacrilate (Super Glue) - it's like Welding plastic with that mixture, and it REALLY works on that stuff. Makes me wish I still had the old Super Nintendo that the entire corner broke off for the same reason.
Obviously this might have been noted early on as I had a Super NES without this issue from a later production run, and my most recent Versa M/75 does not suffer from this at all either oddly enough.