Well, I have about 30 years experience with IT so I'm no spring chicken myself either. But I still have all the files I have made since I started out (mostly audio and Word Perfect/Word files). As long as you think ahead you're OK. I have three complete 486DX pc's with DOS and Windows 311 and three complete Pentium computers with Windows 95 and NT in my brother's barn, and I have copies of all files three places: There, at home and in online backup. And when I need something I convert it in stages (early Word Perfect into later Word Perfect and then into Word) or look at them on the computers from that age. What I do not do is to expect anybody to support the older file formats in anything.
But I agree that throwing away the originals is stupid if you have room for them in the format they are in. I would never throw away my old files. But I don't work on the old systems if I don't have to. Which is exactly my point: Conversion is almost always possible, if you are willing to do the leg work. I'm guessing that you could have done quite a few conversions into a newer format or managed to find a format that would actually work in the time you have spent explaining your reasons here...
