>I had the 16 year old 3 1/2" diskettes in my hand last year, but also no drive. Somebody does has a drive around here somewhere, but I had keep my own copies on hard disk all these years.

Actually, the best way to keep them is on the disk. I still have some files which have survived since 1991 (or probably older - for this one directory I knew where to look), by mere act of copying to the next disk. They've probably survived a dozen machines so far.

I had both types of floppies back then, and learned that you just can't trust them, nor can you actually trust CDs for anything truly important. Maybe for a few years, but after a point they should be re-burned.

Maybe in the first years on the market each of these media type was up to the specs, but as time went by, they were all made cheaper; drives too.