> Unfortunately digital recordings don't tolerate degradation at all.  
> A single bit error is enough to make a binary file unusable....
 
Are you sure?  Floppies, like hard disks, include a cyclic redundancy
check (CRC) to detect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_formatting#Low-level_formatting_of_flo
ppy_disks
and, at least in the case of single bit, *correct* the error.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Error_correction#Error-correcting_code